Marina Girl

By Heather Joy Hampton

Olivia Michaels knew she was embarking on an adventure when she moved to San Francisco, but she had no idea her address would label her a social pariah commonly referred to as a Marina girl.





The Marina girl is a stereotype of a preppy, generic young woman who lives in the tiny neighborhood known as the Marina. You need to know about the history of the Marina to understand how and why the Marina girl developed into the albatross of San Francisco.





After the 1906 earthquake, the city pushed all the ashes and rubble north down the steep hills of Pacific Heights, creating a landfill adjacent to a former pasture that later became the Cow Hollow neighborhood. Hundreds of Mediterranean-style homes were constructed in the 1920s on land that jiggled better than Bill Cosbys Jell-O when the 1989 earthquake hit.





Most of the longtime residents moved away, leaving yuppie youngsters, perhaps less aware of their own mortality, to take over the neighborhood. Twenty years later, the Marina is the playground for San Franciscos worst nightmare, otherwise known as the Marina girl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462858880

Heather Joy Hampton

Heather Joy Hampton’s adventures living in San Francisco as a Marina girl were life changing and an experience that inspired her to write a novel about the perils of navigating through society in San Francisco. She is a graduate of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. This is her first novel.

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MARINA GIRL

Heather Joy Hampton

Copyright © 2011 by Heather Joy Hampton.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011906049

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-5887-3

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-5886-6

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-5888-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Livia Hajovsky.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

92453

Contents

Chapter One Twangy Fresh Meat

Chapter Two Bragasaurus

Chapter Three The Copies That Brought On The Catfight

Chapter Four Nose Donuts

Chapter Five Kappa Kappa Kraigslist

Chapter Six 30Sexpress

Chapter Seven The Princess Palace

Chapter Eight Stanley Sorrenstein

Chapter Nine Dr. Party Girl And The Wasabi Yenta

Chapter Ten The Mayor With The Mousse

Chapter Eleven Lookin’ For Love In Online Places

Chapter Twelve The Pacific Heights Gentleman

Chapter Thirteen The African Dog

Chapter Fourteen Dateway

Chapter Fifteen Butterflies On Broadway

Chapter Sixteen The Wrath Of Cupcake

Chapter Seventeen George Of The Jungle

Chapter Eighteen The Apple Seed

Chapter Nineteen Smug Alert

Chapter Twenty Cupcake’s She-Mergency Kit

Chapter Twenty-One Zoe’s Pacific Heights Gentleman

Chapter Twenty-Two See-Ya-Laterade

Chapter Twenty-Three Upheaval

Chapter Twenty-Four The List

Chapter Twenty-Five The Mug Shot

Epilogue

Contributors

If you are not too long, I will wait for you all my life.

—Oscar Wilde

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Embracing and publishing this book has been the hardest thing I have ever done. Pulling 75,000 words out of your ass is a tough thing to do. Pulling 75,000 words out of your heart is even more painful, like kidney stones, if kidney stones were emotional lumps scraping through veins down to my fingers tapping away at a laptop for two years.

My parents stood by and encouraged me in ways I can’t quite understand until I have children of my own someday. Their faith in God pushed me through the darkest times of my life. Their belief and trust gave me strength. Their patience gave me courage when all I wanted to do was to be done with everything. I want to thank both of them for believing in me, for believing in each other, and for loving each other and teaching me what lifelong commitment is all about. Both of your have hearts bigger than you know, and I love both of you more than words can say.

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I want to give big juicy smooch of thankfulness to all of my friends and family who supported and encouraged me along the way: Cliff and Melanie, Michael and Lauren, David and Danya, Aunt Patti, Uncle John, Aunt Sherri, Uncle Danny, Aunt Arlene, Uncle George, Aunt Lorraine, Uncle Bill, Nana and Papa, Ke’ston, Kynleigh, Deven, Lyle, Camille, Amanda, Joe, Lia, Dev, Nicole, Adam, Matt, Annie, Dan, Mira, Steve, Jenn and many others.

To all of the magnificent people I encountered in San Francisco: every single one of you touched my heart and I will forever remember my time in San Francisco as my good old days especially the moments I enjoyed with the lovely ladies I had the pleasure and honor of sharing a home with. This book couldn’t have been possible without the encouragement and support of my Pacific Heights Gentleman. You will always be my Mr. T.

I would also like to thank the Xlibris staff, Sal Sessa for the author photography, and Livia Hajovsky for the illustrations (and also for being my Mom).

—H.J.H.

MARINA GIRL’S LEXICON OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

30Sexpress: Marina neighborhood bus line that runs down Chestnut Street during rush hour, delivering Marina girls and guys into the Financial District after being vertically spooned by fellow riders.

bennie: Friend with bow-chick-a-bow-wow benefits, otherwise known as a booty call

cash ’n’ prizes: Lady’s assets. Breasts are the cash winnings and lady parts are the prize, as in a game show where someone wins cash and prizes

code yellow: Urine, pee-pee, tinkle, what you whisper to your friend at a quiet establishment or house party when you need to pee

code brown: Poop, number two, what you tell your roommates after pooping and making a stink

competitive dating: Dating someone because your friends are impressed by his job, car, apartment, looks, etc.

dart board dating: Sporadic dating pattern most often identified by dating individuals of drastic lifestyles, appearance, religions, occupations, locations, and personalities in the hopes of eventually figuring out the mate best suited for you

Dateway: The infamous Marina grocery store nicknamed Dateway for its reputation as the unofficial best place for the heterosexual white bread crowd to cruise for dates. The Marina Dateway is not a place to grab a gallon of milk in your pajamas. It is also not a place to gossip about Marina dudes, for there is a 22 percent chance your cart will bump into them midbreath. Nor is it a place to purchase supersized tampons (or any size of tampons for that matter), laxatives, or hemorrhoid cream (even if it is for under-eye circles). You better cross the Golden Gate Bridge to plug the vagessa or cure a code brown.

Depressica: Malaise of a melancholy Marina girl diagnosed by bunny slippers in the afternoon and oversized sunglasses worn indoors to disguise smeared mascara from last night. Code red-elevated status would be Jessica Depressica.

DOB: Dirty old bastards. If a Peter Pan is over the age of forty and still frolicking on Striped Shirt Alley with twenty-three-year-old Marina girls, he’s a dirty old bastard.

douche bag pic: A guy who has a shirtless picture he took of himself in the bathroom mirror.

expiration dating: Dating someone knowing that the end of the relationship is in sight, normally due to moving or differing lifestyles.

fat butt skinny legs: Double-pleated khaki pants situated on a middle-aged man body with a bit of a paunch that make his legs look skinny and his butt look fat.

field of dreams: Creating a positive environment conducive to finding a boyfriend. Best example would be trashing all the stuffed animals, twin mattress, lace bedspreads, and hot pink comforters a.k.a. If you build it, he will come.

Freegan: Person who adopts an alternative lifestyle as an urban forager based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. In other words, they make you feel like an asshole by digging through your trash and eating the leftovers you just threw out.

gaysian: A homosexual man who is Asian.

good jeans: Jeans that may or may not be designer, but they make your booty look like two scoops of ice cream.

hairspiration: Being inspired by your haircut/color to do things you normally would not do

husbands: Guys that are dating in the hopes of finding that special someone to share the rest of their life with, or at least a girl that fits all their must-have requirements.

jelly: Being jealous.

just-add-water boyfriend: Meeting a guy and immediately falling in love with the idea of him without falling in love with him

liquid courage: Two glasses into an evening when you are drunk enough to lower your inhibitions but not too drunk to make an ass out of yourself. Also, see hairspiration.

little piggies: Toes, normally used in conversations surrounding getting a pedicure, or needing a pedicure.

man-child: Twenty-three-year-old recent college graduate making a six-figure salary and not a lick of sense about what to do with it.

mini: A potentially long-term relationship that fizzles within three months. Causes of minideaths include weird bedroom preferences, concealed drug habits, Peter Pan anti-relationship virus, and sudden intimacy death syndrome (see SIDS).

missed connection: craigslist online posting when you have a moment with a stranger across the room but do not exchange info: Looking for the sweet piece of ass wearing a terry cloth jumpsuit. I was wearing a popped collared shirt and seersucker shorts at Betelnut last Sunday. Hit me up if you’re single.

Pacific Heights Gentleman: A particular breed of men, usually rehabilitated former Marina Peter Pans, who live in the Pacific Heights neighborhood next to the Marina.

paper for numbers: Toilet paper for your number 1 and number 2, usually said under your breath when your roommate says What else do we need to get? while standing in the middle of Dateway. Ummm, we need paper for our numbers. Ya know number 1 and number 2.

pecan and walnuts: Man parts, usually used in derogatory terms.

Peter Pan syndrome: Marina dudes, SoMa studs, Richmond players who live a stunted adolescent existence fueled by vodka red bulls and filled with high-end electronics and outdoor sporting gear. Their boyish good looks and charming personalities thinly disguise a layer of selfish whimsy, most often exhibited by a refusal to entertain the concept of growing up. The opportunity cost of committing to a Marina girl, or any woman for that matter, is far outweighed by doing whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want. They just want to be boys forever! The Peter Pans of the Marina are clouded in an air of righteousness. They mock certain immature behaviors and then concoct their own theories for behaving identically as the lecherous people they fancy themselves to be superior to.

sausage factory: Location, usually a drinking establishment, filled with men.

sudden intimacy death syndrome (SIDS): Acronym used to explain the unexplainable situation where a relationship, usually a mini, dissolves overnight without explanation.

Striped Shirt Alley: Union Street/Fillmore Street, also known as fraternity row or the Bermuda Triangle

two-buck-chuck: Some winemaker down in the Central Valley of Southern California got the brilliant idea one day to buy up a bunch of failing wineries, combine them, and mass-produce popular varietals of wine on the cheap to be sold at Trader Joe’s grocery store for only a $1.99 a bottle under the name Charles Shaw.

vagessa: Lady parts, downstairs, va-jay-jay, peek-a-choo, kooffee, okay fine I’ll say it, vagina.

MARINA GIRL

CHAPTER ONE

TWANGY FRESH MEAT

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

—Oscar Wilde

TWO DOZEN S’CUSE me and sorry apologies were met with blank stares without a grasp of the Southern manners version of the English language as I navigated the metal tote-your-crap-rent-a-cart with a mind of its own through the San Francisco International Airport baggage claim and over to the cab stand. After four hours of antsy thumb twiddling, stale peanut munching, and grueling turbulences, I was ready to start my new life in San Francisco.

Mornin’! Can I get a lift into the city? I said as I wheeled my metal cart to the taxi at the front of the cab stand. The ninety-pound cab driver wearing a newsboy cap peeked over a newspaper and looked me up and down.

No worries, I gotcha, she said, popping her gum as she reached for one of my suitcases.

That’s okay, I have it. I whiffed, blowing a lock of hair out of my face, lifting the oversized suitcase.

Workin’ for the tip somehow, ya know? I’m Chelsea. She took the suitcase out of my hands and slid it into the trunk. Chelsea mastered the art of invisible makeup and casual stylishness in a scruffy yet feminine way I could not quite understand, while half-heartedly loading the rest of my luggage into the trunk of her cab.

Image 1 Suitcases.jpg

Pleased to meet you, I’m Olivia. I sunk down into the crackled imitation leather back seat of the taxi cab and blotted my forehead with a handkerchief. It was fifty-five degrees outside, yet I had a flop of sweat that mirrored a point guard at the free throw line.

So Olivia, where are ya headed to in the city? Two-bit Chelsea with the trendy hat asked as she pulled out a notepad.

Can you take me to Jackson and Davis, please?

Well well well, fresh meat, I see, you new in town? I can tell from the twang. No worries, you’ll lose that accent soon enough. Chelsea decided as she jotted in her notepad and smacked it shut.

What if I don’t want to lose my accent?

Oh shit, lady, you’re gonna lose it quick. Unless you enjoy people thinking you’re inbred, but whatever, Bee-younce-eeah is on! Chelsea turned up the volume and sang along to the music blaring from her taxi’s janky speakers, twisting her head back and forth to the beat.

It all started with a phone call from the vice president of the architectural firm where I worked, after he heard through the corporate rumor mill I was willing to relocate for the right opportunity when I was notified my group was downsizing. Mr. Vice President made me an offer I couldn’t refuse to relocate to San Francisco, so suddenly my twangy Texas world was turned inside out.

I had been living in the uptown neighborhood of Dallas and nursing a serious case of cabin fever due to living within thirty miles of my parents all my life combined by a tumultuous breakup with a very bad boyfriend. Plus, frankly, I was bored as hell. So when the call came, I was easily transportable and ready to get the heck out of Big D.

Within three days, I was flying to San Francisco for an interview with a few of the California high-ranking honchos. Those smart motherfuckers knew what they were doing by letting me spend a weekend all expenses paid: the city simply seduced me. Wandering through Chinatown back to my hotel room, the California street cable car’s bell caught my attention in one of those definitive moments in time as a lanky tourist hung off a vertical grab bar to capture a photo of the Bay Bridge as the cable car careened down the steep incline. I cupped my hands around my eyes to block the sun as I watched the tourist’s excited reactions. In that moment, I decided to move to San Francisco. I spent the rest of the weekend attempting to find an apartment and melted off three pounds walking up and down the steep hills of San Francisco.

I found an apartment. It’s a small studio, but it’s a few blocks away from work and seemed safe, I said as I gasped at my first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge at the Powell-Hyde cable car turnaround, which minutes before catapulted me from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Well, ummm, where are you right now? my dad asked.

I’m waiting for a cable car to take me back to my hotel, I said, taking a picture of the bridge from a distance.

Wait, hold on a second, baby—Peanut, quit dribbling that ball!—I swear your brother is driving me crazy. Now, what is a cable car?

I’ll show you pictures when I get back to Texas.

So I guess this means that you are really moving then . . .

Yep, this will be home, Dad.

Growing up in hotter-than-hell Texas, there are only two seasons: summer and the other one. Texans spend six months out of the year in sweltering triple-digit heat and the rest of the time in a dysfunctional, spastic relationship with the evening news meteorologist. Forty-degree temperature changes, torrential flooding, tornadoes, and ice storms were the norm October through April, so the foggy, mild climate of Northern California was a welcome change.

I always desired to live in a more urban environment like Manhattan, but the rat race of New York City was too daunting. San Francisco’s seven by seven miles of steep hills, gingerbread Victorian painted ladies, and ocean adjacent location was the remedy to cure my cabin fever. My alabaster complexion that produced the nickname Snowflake in high school was also looking forward to the year-round sixty-two-degree weather.

I enjoyed my easy existence in my Texas bubble where everything was inexpensive, men were chivalrous and tall, and football was the primary religion. It was also all I knew, so I questioned if I liked Texas solely because it was familiar. My last couple of weeks in Dallas had a mellow routine of spending most weekends watching football at my favorite bar across the street from my apartment on McKinney Avenue and grabbing burritos as big as my forearm at one of the thirty Tex-Mex restaurants within a three-mile radius of my apartment. My soon-to-be San Francisco life was a postcard in my head of the glistening Golden Gate Bridge, shopping in Union Square at the five-story Macy’s department store, and sipping pinot noir in tiny wine bars.

One cloudy December morning, exactly eleven days after the phone call that rocked my world, movers packed all my earthly belongings, crammed them into a big truck that lumbered down the tree-lined street I lived on in the uptown neighborhood of Dallas, and changed my life forever. Those carefully packed suitcases held two weeks’ worth of suits, shoes, toiletries, Christmas presents, bedding, and other items I would need to get by while sleeping on the floor of my studio apartment until the movers delivered everything else.

Two-bits Chelsea switched on the hazard lights and clicked the taxi meter as I paused for a moment to calculate a tip for someone that lifted more than her body weight in luggage (minus the inbred comment) in front of my new high-rise residence in the Financial District of San Francisco. Habib the doorman (fancy, huh?) emerged from the double doors with a wheelie cart I only thought hotels used to help carry my junk into my five-hundred-square-foot studio with a view of the Bay Bridge.

Hold on, let me put my bag down and find my wallet. I smiled to Habib as I fished through my purse while he unloaded my suitcases.

Pardon?

I’m supposed to tip you, right? Habib tsk-tsked, turned on one of his wing-tipped heels, and walked back to the elevator muttering under his breath in whatever language they speak where his people come from.

Twenty minutes later, my toiletries were neatly lined up in the bathroom vanity, suits hung in the closet, and seven pairs of shoes stacked in the closet cubby holes. I kicked off my shoes and sat down on the carpet, looked around, wondering where I would hang pictures. Even empty, the apartment felt claustrophobic. I walked toward the big patio and slid the sliding glass door open. It was half the size of my apartment in Texas, twice the rent, but totally worth it I decided as I gazed out onto the Bay Bridge in the distance.

Becoming a Marina girl didn’t occur immediately. The stereotype of a Marina girl was a label initially unknown to me when I moved to San Francisco, but I instantly connected with that version of the San Francisco social scenery. As I walked through the crowded Financial District that afternoon for the first time, in my cheap turtleneck and cowboy boots, I found myself swimming in one of those definitive moments in life that grab you by the back of the neck, wishing I was one of the stylish and hurried Marina girls scurrying down Market Street to the Pine Street 30Sexpress bus stop. Each of the two dozen or so Marina girls was uniquely fresh, chic, and effortlessly dressed versus other San Francisco residents who appeared to have gotten dressed in the dark out of the dirty clothes bin. Those girls represented every reason I moved to San Francisco, a city that is a seductress to so many, welcoming every vice and delicacy in exchange for a steep cost of living.

Many come to San Francisco to be themselves, to escape from others, to chase whimsical fantasies, to taste the juice of societal freedom that so many parts of the country frowned upon. I wanted an adventure. I wanted to discover what I was made of. I wanted to live a life that was full of personal growth and unique experiences and accomplish more than I ever dreamed of. I wanted my life to be everything and nothing like I expected so when the opportunity presented itself to move to this quirky, topsy-turvy, glamorous, sparkling city by the bay I jumped at the change to turn my life upside down.

The dead bolt of my front door made a whack sound as I shut it after the movers finally left. Okay, let’s get this party started, I said out loud as I clapped my hands together in excitement. I turned around and bumped my head into the stack of boxes in front of me. I looked around the stack and only saw another stack. I squeezed between the two stacks into another stack. The entire apartment was filled floor to ceiling with moving boxes. What if I needed to pee? I thought as I bit my bottom lip. There were too many boxes in the way.

By sundown, most of the boxes were finally unpacked. I was making progress, but it wasn’t pretty. I spent the rest of my New Year’s Eve unpacking and playing furniture Tetris, rearranging everything to get it to somehow fit. My shoes had nowhere else to go but in the kitchen cupboard.

From a distance, I heard fireworks and stepped out onto my balcony to watch the kaleidoscope of sparkling bursts dance across the night sky. The twinkling white lights of the Bay Bridge off in the distance reminded me of the white lights wrapped around my parent’s Christmas tree. I blinked to release a chubby tear and realized there wasn’t a single person to softly wipe it away. I was all on my own from now on.

CHAPTER TWO

BRAGASAURUS

Life is just one damn thing after another.

—Elbert Hubbard

BRIGHT AND EARLY the next morning, I woke up with a food hangover from the Chinese takeout stinking up my pint-size refrigerator and decided