Find Your Heart

By Susan Stocker

Find Your Heart, the sequel to Kiss Your Elbow begins in 1968 at junior college when Jobs, friends, and the gay women’s bar scene dominated life. The late sixties were the beginning of the women’s movement. It was a time when we used fake IDs to enter the popular women’s gay bar scene, and where my very disastrous and futile attempts at dating provided an infinite number of comical, and cringe-worthy and often painful moments.
You’ll remember your own awkward first dates, first relationships, and first heartbreaks as we go on a wild and memorable ride through the sixties, seventies, and eighties in Southern California, looking for our first real loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Desert Palm Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781948327428

Susan Stocker

Writing since I was a child growing up in Long Beach, California, I’ve always enjoyed making people laugh. I heard “you should be a writer” starting in grade school. Many careers later, which included graphic design, photography and social work, I have finally come full circle back to the writer phase and I love it.I live in Claremont, California with my partner Jan, and a variety of pets on our one third acre.We enjoy frequent international travel and are both avid photographers. We volunteer at Crossroads which is a program for woman coming out of prison. I lead a therapeutic writing group and Jan is a cooking coach.

Book preview

Also by Susan Stocker

Kiss Your Elbow

Finding Your Heart

A Wild Romp through the 70s, 80s, and 90s-Surviving Fake IDs, Awkward Dates, and Best Friends Cheering as You Finally Fall in Love

By Susan Stocker

©2019 Susan Stocker

ISBN (book): 9781948327411

ISBN (epub): 9781948327428

ISBN (pdf): 9781948327435

This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Desert Palm Press

1961 Main St, Suite 220

Watsonville, CA 95076

Editor: Kaycee Hawn

Cover Design: Michelle Broduer eeboxWORX

Blurb

Find Your Heart, the sequel to Kiss Your Elbow begins in 1968 at junior college when Jobs, friends, and the gay women’s bar scene dominated life. The late sixties were the beginning of the women’s movement. It was a time when we used fake IDs to enter the popular women’s gay bar scene, and where my very disastrous and futile attempts at dating provided an infinite number of comical, and cringe-worthy and often painful moments.

You’ll remember your own awkward first dates, first relationships, and first heartbreaks as we go on a wild and memorable ride through the sixties, seventies, and eighties in Southern California, looking for our first real loves.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to everyone who supported me while I was writing Find Your Heart. Always grateful to my publisher Lee Fitsimmons for her willingness to help and guide. To my partner Jan Cowin for her unwavering encouragement and gentle nudges to keep writing and to my friend Paul Britz who for the cost of a few Subway sandwiches spent hours reading and editing my original manuscript.

Dedication

To my best friends Stacia, Rebecca and Priscilla. I love you all.

Chapter One

IN THE SPRING OF 1968, I said a resounding goodbye to high school, nude swim parties, a huge crush on my volleyball coach, and headed off on my next journey—my first semester at Long Beach City College. Finally, I had fewer parental controls, a chance to decide what actually interested me in terms of my future occupation, and what seemed like endless possibilities for new social experiences.

In reality, this freedom translated into discovering more opportunities to party, using drugs and alcohol, and taking the easiest classes possible as not declaring any type of college major that might cut into my active personal life. The junior college was actually right across the street from my childhood home, so it certainly wasn’t going ‘away’ to college like a few of my friends. It was more like, Oh, yeah, I better get up and get going cause my first class starts in ten minutes and I need a shower and breakfast.

Most of my friends were about as motivated to get good grades as I had been in high school; therefore we were all joining the ranks of the Long Beach City College crew to check off the first two years at a junior college, and in my case to take dumbbell math for the fourth and hopefully final time. I guess those in charge of my educational goals figured after four attempts at basic math you clearly know you’re not going to MIT or into any occupation requiring mathematics, though I’d already established that reality in the second grade sandbox where my friend tried unsuccessfully to help me learn basic arithmetic. The first semester I took five classes which included dumbbell math, English literature, American history, PE, and geology. I got a ‘D’ in dumbbell math, an ‘A’ in PE, and in the rest of my classes low Cs. I thought I did pretty well, though my parents, who were financing my higher education, made it clear they were a little disappointed in my lack of motivation and less than stellar grades.

Though we didn’t share classes, I still saw my friends every day. I continued to surf before school with them and, with a little creativity, managed to schedule my only class on Friday to end at ten in the morning, giving myself enough time to drive up to Big Bear and be skiing by noon. Leaving the ski resort by three in the afternoon, I’d race to get home, and then to get to work by six to help chaperone the rec department’s teen dances on Friday night from seven to ten. It was a perfect life as far as I was concerned, and I didn’t see how it could get any better.

When one of our senior recreation staff mentioned he was looking for an Assistant Pool Director, I had my best friend Cindy from high school apply and she got the job. From then on, after the pool closed for the evening on Saturdays, I’d join about four other women who were pool staff, lifeguards, and other rec leaders and we’d hang out and party. The pool was a large natatorium with tinted windows, making it hard for the nasty old men we called ‘The Park Pedophiles’ to easily see into the pool area. We’d also turned off all the locker room lights, so the building was even less illuminated, assuring anyone who happened to be in the park at night could not witness our antics. Now we could act crazy and carry on without worrying about anyone calling the city and ruining our weekend fun.

The women who were old enough to buy alcohol would collect money from all of us who weren’t and then purchase all the beer and wine we could afford. For a buck, you could get a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine that lasted the entire night. There was an old rickety staff fridge we’d fill with beer and snacks and then as we all became increasingly intoxicated, we’d jump off the high dive in the dark, swim, and ride skateboards on the pool deck, trying to catch frisbees before falling into the pool. We’d stay there until one o’clock in the morning drinking and acting crazy, always careful to haul away any evidence of our presence when we finally went home.

One Monday afternoon after a particularly wild Saturday night pool party, I was at my after-school job at the park when Cindy drove up. I was surprised to see her because she worked the same hours as I did, but at the pool.

We messed up, Cindy said in a low voice out her car window.

What are you talking about?

We left evidence in the fridge. Somebody forgot to make sure there were no more beers left. This morning my supervisor, Dan, found the beers and put all of us on suspension till he finds out who did it.

Are you shittin’ me? We left beer in the refrigerator? Oh my God. What should we do?

Nothing. It’s too late now. I can’t even think of an explanation of why there was beer in the staff refrigerator. I gotta go. Since I’m suspended, I can’t even be on city property till this is resolved. Call me later.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out a way to reasonably explain why there would have been beers in the fridge when the only people with keys were Cindy and Dan. It was a break-in? No, who breaks into a building and leaves beers in the icebox? After hours of thought, the only lie I could come up with was Cindy must have lost her keys and somebody found them, got into the building, and put the beers in the fridge to keep them cold. Lame? Yes. But possible in the mind of an eighteen-year-old, especially if that’s all you got. I called Cindy later with my thoughts.

Okay, what about if you say you lost your keys, and somebody must have found them and got into the pool building and put their beers in the staff fridge?

That sounds ridiculous. Who would use lost keys to put beers in a fridge?

Well, what’s your solution? Admit it was us? I said, feeling annoyed.

No, I’d never say it was everyone, I’d just take the rap and get fired.

No way, we can figure somethin’ out. When’s your meeting with Dan?

Tomorrow morning at nine.

Give me more time to work this out. I’ll call you later.

After talking to two of our other pool party friends, they agreed the lost keys might be the only reasonable defense. Plus, they reminded me of another angle which could play to our favor. A group of older boys always played over-the-line on the ball field near the pool building. They’d been busted before for bringing beer to the park in a cooler and had been warned if it happened again, they would all be banned from the premises. If Cindy had lost her keys, and those guys found them, maybe they put their beer in the fridge to stay cold and accidentally left the beer there.

Okay, Cindy, I think this is the best we can come up with. Blame those guys who play over-the-line and got in trouble for underage drinking in public a few months ago. You lost your keys and they found them, then they used the staff fridge to keep their brews cold.

I’m telling you that the story won’t work. I’m gonna get fired.

You won’t get fired if you just do what I’m telling you to do. Call Dan now and tell him you just discovered you’ve lost your keys. You’ve looked everywhere, and you can’t find them and you’re not sure where you lost them after locking up on Saturday night.

Yeah. Okay, whatever. I’ll call him and tell him I lost my keys on Saturday night, and those over-the-line boys who by some miracle found my lost keys, got into the building, and left their beers chillin’ in the fridge. Sounds utterly convincing if you’re about six years old. I’m screwed.

Just trust me. It’ll work. Call me after your meeting with Dan.

Later in the evening, I came up with this great idea of planting evidence confirming the over-the-line boys were involved. I had an old beat up six-pack cooler in the garage that hadn’t been used in years. If it was found at the park near the scene of the crime, it might just make the boys appear to be the culprits. I decided to take the cooler back to the park and leave it somewhere suspicious and in plain view.

By now, it was close to nine at night, but I felt like the additional evidence would make Cindy’s case even stronger, so I drove the cooler to the park. Leaving my car in the darkest part of the parking lot, I walked to the area where the boys usually played and left the cooler suspiciously sitting by a large tree in plain sight, then I snuck back to my car making sure to stay in the shadows. I was just about to start my engine when another car pulled into the parking lot and stopped in the opposite corner of the lot. A figure got out and began walking towards the park. As soon as the figure disappeared into the dark, I started my car and quickly exited the parking lot.

Cindy called me the next day and told me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. The maintenance staff had found not only my little cooler by the tree, but also two more empty coolers, one by the baseball diamond and one by the basketball court. Dan was convinced everyone was bringing beer to the park and ordered new signs quoting city regulations and fines for drinking in public areas. The number of coolers found around the park so outraged him, he quickly forgot Cindy had lost her keys, declared the investigation over, and all pool staff were reinstated. I found out later that two of the other women who had partied with us at the pool had brought and left coolers at the park thinking that would throw Dan’s investigation off. We had a great laugh over how we had all decided independently a strategically placed cooler would help our cause and had snuck back into the park under the cover of darkness to plant them. Cindy got her job back and we continued drinking and partying at the pool, just much more careful about what we left in the fridge.

At the end of the summer, Dan told Cindy the city was going to drain and re-plaster the swimming pool. At first, it didn’t really hit us what possibilities a huge empty pool could provide for entertainment, but that was before we realized you could ride bikes and skateboards inside the pool once there’s no water.

The pool had just finished being re-plastered as Saturday evening rolled around. I finished working at my park and then swung by the pool to check out what was happening. Dan had already gone home, leaving Cindy to lock up. A few of us regulars began to congregate, staring into the empty structure and marveling how steep the bottom of the pool actually was with the water gone. Then Cindy brought out a skateboard and dared anyone to try riding it from the shallow end to the deepest end of the pool. When we turned the office lights off so our antics wouldn’t be noticed, the pool area was even darker, making skateboarding even more difficult. After a few tries, I decided it was just too dangerous to skateboard in the dark and I retrieved an old bike that had been found outside the pool months ago.

Now, I announced loudly, I will do a few death-defying tricks that will blow your mind when you realize the skill necessary to complete one of these extremely dangerous and courageous stunts.

Or perhaps, the sheer stupidity of what she will attempt next will blow your mind, as well as possibly her Achilles’ tendon, said Cindy. I seem to remember another trick in your past on a mini-bike that ended up working out differently than you anticipated. If I recall correctly, you fell off the back of the bike, got dragged down the alley, and crashed into a number of trashcans.

Much different circumstances equal much different outcome, my doubtful friend. This time you will truly be amazed by my ability. I was unable to stop laughing at the memory of the mini-bike incident. Okay, that wasn’t my finest hour, I’ll agree, but these tricks will absolutely boggle your shallow little minds. Get ready.

I jumped into the empty pool and reached up to get the bike from the side. While I was sitting on the bike, everyone standing around began to chant Go! Go! I started to pedal from the shallow end towards the deep end of the pool, gaining speed, then I took my feet off the pedals and put them on the handlebars to steer. At the last moment I turned the handlebars, made a right turn, and pedaled back up to the shallow end. The next time I stood up on the seat of the bike on one leg, while still holding on to the handlebars and other leg extended out behind me, turning at the last moment before the bike would have banked off the side of the pool. Everyone was laughing and cheering me on.

Anyone interested in challenging me to try a new trick? We’ll play a version of monkey see-monkey-do.

You’re the only monkey I see here, Jae said with a big smile, but I’ll try and ride the bike backwards for everyone’s entertainment. By now Cindy was skating around the pool on a skateboard.

Yeah, you go girl, show us how you can ride your bike backwards down to the deep end of the pool, but don’t crash into the wall, okay, cautioned Cindy. No sooner were the words out of Cindy’s mouth than there was a crash from the dark empty pool.

"Ouch, shit, that