Balinese Puppet Shadows

By Elizabeth Johnson

An Asian, Catholic, poor girl from a dysfunctional family marries a white older man in Silicone Valley. Unexpectedly she lives a life of adultery after crossing a forbidden threshold. Over and over, thereafter, she betrays those she loves, her husband and family. It isn't until old age she understand why she lived a life of infidelity with a secret puppet shadow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Johnson
• Release date: Oct 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005362652

Book preview

Chapter 1, The Door’s Threshold

It was long ago, but for me, not so long ago. On an October 1975, evening, I crossed a forbidden threshold. Although twenty-five-years old, married and mother of two, I was young, a girl, not yet a woman.

That evening, I backed out of our home’s driveway, glanced from the rear-view mirror to the kitchen window and saw him, my husband. He watched me leave, just like Mom did when Dad drove off. At the curb, I looked away and drove off too, uncertain but determined not to turn back.

As I sped off, I asked myself.

Am I like Dad?

But answered.

No, it’s only dinner and a movie.

A lie, I was no longer a faithful wife. I was meeting a man, not my husband and the father of my children, evidence of premeditated betrayal in my purse. 

Leaving my Mountain View, California neighborhood, I turned onto the El Camino Real, the commercial thoroughfare connecting the peninsula cities from San Francisco to San Jose. As I drove among the congestion, I mused about life, my life.

I was a poor girl, educated by Catholic nuns, was going to be one! It was on my way home from Notre Dame High School when he stopped me. He blocked the sidewalk as I walked home from my bus stop.  I was, only sixteen, Asian, he five years older, white.

He’s the first man I kissed.

Engaged with parent’s acquiescence on my seventeenth birthday, I gave my underage marriage consent, for security, to escape a dysfunctional family, because I didn't know how to say no. Engaged, he assumed control, ensured my virginity on the altar. A year later, we married, I just turned eighteen, he twenty-three. 

I’ve never known another man. Now twenty-five, I’m on my first date of choice. I’m being me, at last.

Conversing with myself between stoplights, I rewrote my personal history to justify meeting a man, not my husband. On the radio, Charlie Rich interrupted my rationalizations with, The Most Beautiful Girl.

That’s what he says when he calls, Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world? He says it’s my song, calls me the most beautiful girl in the world.

Approaching Michael’s restaurant in Sunnyvale, our meeting place, however, my confidence dissipated, replaced with timid reality.

I’m risking my marriage, family, my world. I should go home.

I knew I wouldn't. I was adrift, on remote, led by a yearning set loose, something long-repressed, now free. I didn't know where or how it would end. What was I thinking? I wasn’t. I just went heart forward.

Familiar with the restaurant from driving past, I’d never eaten there. Its outside decor proclaimed it too upscale for our family budget. Going in was entering unfamiliar terrain, economic, social, and moral.

I was scared but fear was part of the enticement. Scanning the parking lot from across the street, I wondered if he even came, with a false hope he didn’t. There it was, his black Porsche, parked near the front entrance. Knowing I shouldn’t but no longer in control, I turned in.

Parked, I calmed myself and checked my lipstick in the mirror.

Assured, no pleased with my reflection, I recommitted myself, smiled confidence, clambered out and hastened to the entrance. I strode forward, my small gold sequin purse strung on a shoulder, my knees visible in the red mini dress. My heels clicked on the pavement; each step declared determination.

I glanced down into his Porsche as I passed it and imagined him in its leather seat, driving to see me, his left hand holding and turning the steering wheel, his right gripping and shifting the gear shift knob.

Did he rush here to see me with anticipation? What’s it like to ride in a Porsche?

My quick pace wasn’t confidence’s determination. I was afraid to be seen by someone known. They would want to know why I was there, dressed up, alone, seeing a man, not my husband. Yet haste was also fed by desire, desire to see him again. Fear and desire swirled together with each step.

The maître d’ standing in the foyer swung open one of the heavy entry doors with beveled glass panes as I approached. He bent down and whispered as I entered the foyer.  

Are you meeting Dr. Evans?

Nodding, he replied.

Follow me.

The crowded tables blurred past as I followed, pleased he had the maître d’ look for my arrival. Then I saw him, seated behind a secluded corner table. Edward, his jet-black hair combed straight back, face clean-shaven. His clear, inquisitive, blue eyes looked up. Our eyes met. His full lips broke into a smile. White teeth flashed as he rose to his full six-foot-plus height.

A pang of unease swept me; afraid he’d hug on my arrival as others turned to watch. Instead, as my chair was pulled back by the maître d’, he simply said.

Elizabeth, I’m so happy you came. You look beautiful!

His expensive blazer and assured deportment matched the establishment’s upscale decor and silverware as did his confident, resonant, timbered voice. Not outright handsome, he was nice looking, a pleasant face to view. It was his mannerisms, urbanity, and voice which pushed him into handsome.

Beautiful, my husband never says it.

Seated, I was glad I came. His presence dissipated the last anxiety. His voice mesmerized my attention. Looking across the table, my heart knew I was his. Wearing the shoes, dress, and earrings he’d bought told him it was true.

He ordered a rose’ wine by its French name. At his suggestion, I ordered their specialty, Shrobster, a New England stuffed lobster.  Flush with wine, his voice, and charm we ate. We talked but I did most of it. For dessert, we had sherry and shared a flan Brulee, all new to me. I stared transfixed as the little blue fire flickered and flamed out.

Tipsy by wine, we walked from the restaurant to the adjacent Century 21 Theater to see the movie Chinatown, the innocent pretense for our meeting A Michael’s restaurant matchbook surreptitiously tucked in my purse. 

       

In the safety of the dark theater, I put my hand on his knee, then his thigh. At The End, I finally let him hold my hand as we walked up the aisle to the lobby. There he turned me to face him.

Stop for a glass wine. I’ll show you, my place.

I need to use the phone.

In the security of the wooden phone booth, I closed the folding door, composed my mind what to say and called home to assure all was okay.

Hubby answered on the second ring. I simply informed him.

Honey, I’m going to be a little late.

Avoiding an argument, I hung up, agreeing to be home by midnight. Edward walked me to my Dodge Dart. Embarrassed, I thought.

At least it’s not my station wagon.

Following his Porsche, nervous anxiety returned as dinner’s wine confidence waned.

Just miss a light, turn, go home, say I got lost.

I told myself to go home but followed closely. He ensured we made the lights together. Finally, he drifted over and parked on a sycamore tree-lined street in front of a new, two-story, upscale, townhouse, apartment complex near Stanford University. Parked next to the curb behind him, hesitant, transfixed with indecision, I sat with my hands on the steering wheel, car still running. He walked back, opened my car door, and reached down to assist my exit. Startled back to reality, I released my steering wheel grip, turned the engine off, grabbed my purse, took his hand, and placed myself into his control.

He led me over the curb and onto the concrete sidewalk, strewn with yellowed fall sycamore leaves.  They crunched when stepped on. His hand guided me from the sidewalk onto a meandering walkway which traversed the grounds of the townhouse complex. The sounds of splashing and laughing swimmers replaced the crunch of leaves. As we passed the pool emitting the smell of chlorine, I worried my palm was sweaty. Past the pool, the scent of hibiscus flowers mingled with that of redwood and eucalyptus trees while I kept thinking.

One glass, then I’ll leave.

In front of his apartment, he let my hand free. My, heart leaped about as he unlocked the door. He swung it open for my entry. Hesitant, heart fluttering, I peeked inside, stepped forward and crossed the threshold. Past the door, standing in his foyer, my cheeks flush, I thought.

I’m in his apartment. What difference does it make now?

A large, lighted aquarium dominated my view. Clutching my purse with both hands, it held in front as a pretense shield, I approached the aquarium, a temporary sanctuary. I watched fish dart about and gained composure while he went to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine.

Turning from the fish tank, I scanned the room and watched as he filled two glasses, my heart calmed. I was glad I’d come.

He came and handed me a filled glass. My right hand let go of my purse and took it by its stem. Partially disarmed, I took a long sip, then another, until it was gone. He smiled when handed the empty glass.

It’s Pinot.

I glanced back at the tank, away from my hungry glance at his full lips to the aquarium. blue and red one fluttering its tail."

He noticed my glanced diversion.

Which fish do you like?

The little blue and red one flashing its tail.

It’s a male guppy. He flutters his tail to attract females. Look, see the female notice him?"                

Yes, yes. I see her!

Look at the far corner, up near the top. That’s me hiding there.

I saw a little frog hiding in the corner on a lily pad.

You like to hide in corners?

It’s a good place to observe life.

As I relaxed with the second glass of wine, he excused the medical texts splayed on the coffee table, turned on his 8-track, stereo, tape recorder and pretended to show me the apartment.

The speakers released a subdued song, Midnight at the Oasis, by Maria Muldaur as the kitchen, living room and laundry floated briefly before my gaze. Everything was neat and orderly, including the nape of his neck where the barber had trimmed his hairline. Only skewed about medical texts suggested disarray but also recent study. His bedroom was on the second level. I knew I shouldn’t go up the stairs.

He reached for my left hand clutching my purse. I thought he was seeking to dance. Instead, he took hold of the wrist and led me up the stairs, relaxed and calm, as if it was just another part of the apartment to see. The ending lyrics Midnight at the Oasis played as we ascended.

Midnight at the oasis

Send your camel to bed

Got shadows painting our faces

And traces of romance in our heads

I concentrated on balancing the wine glass and negotiating the steps in my heels. My heart raced with each step ascended.

I thought.

Let him lead.

At the landing, I peered into his bedroom. The speakers below switched to Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up by Barry White. There was a large waterbed, a dresser, nightstand, and more medical textbooks in a wall bookcase. I followed his lead into the bedroom as I stared at the waterbed. I’d never been on one.

He dimmed the light, took my purse, set it on the nightstand, guided the rim of my wine glass to my lips. He tilted the glass, I took a long sip, then another, until it was empty.

He kissed my wine moistened lips, our first kiss, then turned me around. His aftershave smelled of masculine strength. I stared out the open door, down the stairwell, at the lighted glow of the fish tank. The reels of the stereo turned out romantic music. I only had to grab my purse and step through the door to remain the faithful wife. I knew, if I stayed, he was going to undress me.

I’m ready, pull the zipper down!

Immobile, my back to him, waiting, I changed my gaze from the aquarium to the red polish on my toenails sticking out the front of my shoes. He kissed the nape of my neck. The pearls on the dangling earrings caressed where he kissed when he pulled back. I closed my eyes and arched my head back.

He pulled the zipper down. The dress slid past my shoulders and collapsed into a silken wrap around my shoes. He turned me back to face him. Faint in anticipation, ready to be taken, he stepped me out of the dress and led me to the bed. I obeyed.

Sitting me on the bed’s padded edge, he keeled down and took off my shoes, unhurriedly, unstrapped one, slid it off, held it by the heel, set it under the nightstand, then the other. The shoes off, he rose, put his forehead to mine and reached around to unhook my bra.

I turned my head and raised a hand as if to resist. I wanted to be seduced, not rushed. He kissed me, his tongue darted into my parted lips, pressed me close, reached back again and unhooked the bra. Loosened, he slid the shoulder straps down to my elbows, pulled a strap past one arm, then the other and draped the bra over my purse. My nipples flush, naked except for my panty, legs crossed, I looked down and again stared at my red toenails, ready to be laid on the bed.

He put his arms on my shoulders, tilted me back onto the bed, picked up my crossed feet and swung my legs on. The warmth of the heated water greeted me as my torso undulated adrift to the waves. I watched him undress at the base of the bed in the half-light, my breasts covered by crossed palms.

He disrobed from the top down. First, he removed his blazer, hung it on the back of a chair, then his starched shirt which he aligned atop the blazer.  His bare chest revealed a taut muscular profile accented with a few black hairs. He sat on the chair and removed his shoes, the ones I selected when we first met. He tucked his socks in the empty shoes and set them together under the chair. He stood up, unbuckled his belt, slid his pants off, one leg at a time, folded it with the belt still in its loops and set it on the chair seat.

Unlike my husband, he wore boxer trunks. His penis was hard pressed against them. He bent over and dropped his shorts. As he stood up naked, his penis free, pointed straight out and swayed to and fro as he moved, an aroused guppy with an attracted female. He was about to take me. I waited, ready to be taken.

He climbed on the base of the bed and knelt before me, straddled my legs, and slid forward until his face was to mine. I felt his hard penis brush against my legs as he moved upward and then press against my pelvis, still, panty protected. We kissed.

He rose above me, lifted my arms protecting my breasts, admired my red fingernails, kissed each breast, slid back down to the base of the bed, uncrossed my legs, and slowly pulled off the panty. I murmured no, as I arched up to assist. He pulled it over my feet and brought it to his face then plopped it next to my shoes. He gripped my ankles and spread my legs. I protested coy encouragement, nos.

Open before him, he dropped his face to my vulva and cradled my buttocks as the music continued to float up from speakers below. My hands held his head; my knees spread high. I was open. The doctor knew his anatomy. He first kissed my labia lips and searched for my clitoris. Once found, he twirled it with his tongue and tugged on it with his lips. I kept moaning no’s while arching up to his twirling tongue. My hands clutched the back of his head and pressed his mouth forcibly to my vagina.

I experienced an intense climax while shouting denials as my head swayed side to side on the pillow, earrings caressing cheeks and neck.

With my last pleasured quiver, he raised his head, his approving smile visible in the half-light. He moved up, lay next to me, and let me relax while holding my hand. We said nothing. Once serene again he rolled above me, kissed me, kissed my breasts, and went back down to my clitoris until I was ready for his entry.

My condom, evidenced by my premeditated betrayal, was out of reach in my purse. I’d left it there to avoid revelation of my evening’s wanton intention. Now I needed to interrupt and rummage for it, to expose my lascivious character. Instead, he reached over, opened his nightstand drawer, pulled one out and rolled it on. I needn’t reveal my adultery supposition, a coy relief, my innocence façade preserved.

I arched my hips up, legs spread, vagina wet for his entry, no longer hesitant or coquettish. I wanted him inside. He entered in slow motion, to the hilt. I dropped my buttocks back on the bed. His warm penis pressed up in its excitement and filled my vagina. I shuddered with pleasure and moaned, Yes, yes, please, please me.

He began with slow strokes, moved down deep, and rose almost completely out as he steadily increased the tempo. He attended a crescendo, his back arched up, eyes staring down at me. His pelvis thumped mine on each downstroke, my hands held fast in the covers. I closed my eyes. The trough of each of his downstrokes trust me deeper into the bed, the wave of each of his up takes crested higher.

I experienced a moaning orgasm as he clung onto me and climaxed in a groping spasm while I exclaimed, Aah, Aah! It was my most intense sexual experience. The first time I uttered more than muffled, 'um, um’s' or a few louder, 'oh, ohs' during sex.

Spent, we laid cheek to cheek as the water undulations receded from our convulsive movements. The 8-track tape’s reel had reached its end, the speakers silent. He withdrew his withered penis and rolled off. We lay next to one another, holding hands, as when we walked up the movie aisle. Once the wave motions again subsided, he announced.

Let’s have tea. I’ll make a pot.

The bed again undulated as the water adjusted to his absence. He went to the chair, slid on his trousers but took a fresh shirt out of the closet, left to go downstairs, and closed the door behind him. I was left alone, pleased to arise in private. Unfamiliar with getting out of a waterbed, I put my legs over the edge and after a few wave ripples, sat up on the padded railing.

I reached over and quietly slid open the nightstand drawer and peeked at the open condom box, gratified to see a box of three with two left.  

Secure with the closed bedroom door, I buoyantly arose naked. The bedroom had a bathroom. I gathered my purse; bra, panty, and dress, tippy toed to the bathroom and locked the door. Placing my things atop the hamper I opened the medicine cabinet to check for female traces but there were none. It was bare, except for toothbrush, toothpaste, and shaving stuff. I smiled and thought.

Ha, the doctor’s medicine cabinet holds no medicine.

Closing the cabinet, I saw my reflection in its cover mirror, the face of an adulterer. If eyes are mirrors of the soul, they should reflect condemnation. They didn’t.

I showered using the new soap bar in the tray, dried with the fresh towel next to the hamper, dressed, straightened my tousled hair, put on a dab of perfume and reapplied lipstick, my lips in a smile. Unlocking the door, I got my shoes and while putting them on realized he anticipated the evening with the wine, music, condom, soap bar and towel evidence of the assumed outcome. His foresight pleased me.

Feeling safe dressed, I opened the bedroom door quietly, peeked down at him by the stove, stepped on the landing and then down the stairs. With the tea ready, he handed me a cup as if we were again in the tea shop when we first met, not just out of his bedroom.

Sipping tea, we small talked about the movie neither of us had paid much at1tenion to. There was nothing to add to the experience.

While uncertain what it meant, I was coming back. With the tea gone I whispered.

I need to go.

The words, by midnight came back. It was already half past. He walked me to my car, kissed and kissed me again, held me tight. Breaking free, thinking of the time, I got in, drove off in a rush but watched him in the mirror standing where we kissed.

Back on the El Camino Real, images of crossing his threshold, the fish tank, music melodies, and the blur which occurred on the waterbed came back at each of its frequent stops. It was surreal but it happened.

Approaching my Mountain View turnoff and my driveway, however, I became anxious about coming home. It was well past 1 AM when I pulled into the garage, dreading the coming confrontation.

What am I doing? I’m ashamed. I’m endangering my family, broke my I do vows.

I told myself.

I’ll never take Edward’s call again.

But I did, over and over.

I was in love, in love with a man, not my husband, a man I could never marry.

It was love which could destroy what I valued most, my family.

I'd crossed a forbidden threshold and didn't know how to get back home.

Chapter 2, Rear View Mirror’s Reflection

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards*. Soren Kierkegaard*

After a life of adultery, many men known, I'm old.

Old, when did it become so? Was it when pop culture figures were unfamiliar, when more dead were known than alive, when none my age were present at an event?

Was it when a seat was offered, a door opened, a senior discount given? Or was it when I preferred to sit than stand, stay home at night, take an afternoon nap, retire early to bed? Old, it never seemed to happen but suddenly did.

Born, I grew up, married, became a mother, grandmother, and now great-grandmother!

Oh God, great-grandmother, that’s an old woman, it can’t be denied. Makeup’s art can’t conceal time’s claim on my mirror’s reflected face.

Who wants an old woman? Some preen, flutter, and lewdly flirt for male attention. They attract, at best, sympathy. I don't play the crone clown. Instead, I bask in reality’s harsh glare. Why lie? I’ve spent a life doing so. I accept, I’m an old woman, an inconspicuous passerby, a white-haired silhouette among the throng, to the young, irrelevant, just a little old lady.

If there’s a second glance from another, it’s by an old man. Our fleeting smiles sigh.

If young, would we, could we?

Instead, we shuffle past and reminisce of when we did.

It’s as it has always been. Two thousand years ago, Marcus Cicero summed it up in "De Senectute", his treatise on being old.

"The utmost misery of age I count it,

To feel that it is to be odious, for the young."

While I attempt to display my age with grace and dress for elderly respect, fashion has forsaken me. Female tattoos I abhor are vogue while red lipstick and nail polish I adore, are out. Now, there's no gloves for aged hands, hat for thin gray hair, or lace to conceal a wrinkled face. Even a fur to ward off an old woman's chill is taboo.

It matters not, what I do or think. My earth trek’s time consumed can’t be denied, old age is now my stage.

Yet, elderly have pleasures too. While time's minute hand moves faster as the clock's spring winds down, I'm no longer rushed.  I enjoy dilatory rituals of morning coffee and afternoon tea. I read books, watch movies, and tend a garden, once too busy to do. There’s no need to rush. I’ll hear the Banshee’s wail soon enough.

I have a special pleasure too. I wallow among the patina of my memories. There, in my recollection midden, I live my life anew. It’s a pleasure tinged with betrayal’s guilt. Candid aged introspection unveils the me, I never knew. I’m not the woman I once thought.

A peregrinate journey to old age starts at birth. My trek began on June 8, 1950, in a Santa Clara Valley, California pear orchard. It, like the world I greeted at birth, is gone, pushed aside to create an alien world, Silicon Valley.

I grew up, stumbled into adulthood, and made decisions deemed unimportant which congealed into my life’s portrait, each experience a pearl. Strung together they’re my life's necklace, a lustrous one. Unlike most, however, there’s a secret strand, told in a diary, until now, unread, yet my lifelong friend. It’s a story of a secret puppet shadow’s struggle between animus and anima, my hidden persona.

Like with my husband, I was unfaithful to it due to lapses, omissions, and lies. By the fireplace's warmth, a candle's glow, and wine's comfort, I re-write my diary’s saga with aged insight.

As I do, I wonder how it became so; my life's string of events, the known me versus secret me, two lives in one.

How can one conceal a second life?

Conceived in puberty, she was born crossing adultery’s threshold. Initially wracked with guilt, with time, contriteness waned. I learned to love her. She was me, not all but an intricate part, the hidden me, she who flitted to elicit pleasures with wings of guile. Only I knew her foibles, hidden from all but me.

We all have secrets, dark wishes, forbidden fantasies, convenient lies, selfish omissions but minor ones, forgotten as made. It's the big lie, the hidden life, the double agent act few know. That's my secret puppet shadow, a lifelong lie. Like a spy, those who knew and trusted me knew me not. They loved me while my secret puppet shadow betrayed them, over and over.

Secrets seep out. No, bottled up a lifetime, they yearn to blurt forth, demand release from the mind’s cellar to make one known. So, I write, compelled. It’s an honest opus, told with hindsight’s naked truth. Entering a salacious memory, my mirror's aged reflection gives a Mona Lisa smile. I’m telling you about the amours behind the smile, in graphic detail.

When I close a chapter, I return to who I’m now, an old woman, unless I have another glass of wine. Then my amorous puppet shadow remains alive in my tipsy mind until sleep takes me.

Life's twists and turns have taught, what once I knew, were things untrue. Late at night, awake before sleep, unable to, the past drifts randomly before me. With the scrutiny of age’s honest reflection, my life’s story requires revision from the myth I thought was true.

My secret puppet shadow was selfish, hypocritical, narcissist, libidinous, manipulative, vindictive, even mean. To protect her, I lied to and betrayed those loved, even myself. I loved her most, hard to accept, more so to say but it’s true. I did love her and plead guilty to her indiscretions. While admitting guilt, I prevaricate.  I admit guilt, not wickedness.

I crossed a forbidden threshold. There, I experienced an amorous rush, an erotic high and became addicted. I sought, again and again, the initial euphoria of passing through the taboo door. As an addict, I lied to and endangered the love of those who loved me and those I loved, over and over. Enslavement to a dependent craving, that's my sin.

It's better to be lucky than smart. It's true. My secret puppet shadow gambled again and again yet always won against unwise bets. She garnered a lifelong string of undeserved good fortune. Does gambling with the devil make me evil?

Would I have killed, to evade illicit exposure? If affair pregnant, would I have aborted an unborn child, confessed, and destroyed the family loved, deceive my husband to raise one not his?

Evil what-if’s, too frightful to face. Luckily, these what ifs were never tested Still, tucked in my murky subconscious, they percolate up to interrupt sleep. God's mysterious ways left me untested and unpunished. Hopefully, these, what ifs, don’t weigh in on the scales of my judgment's day.

What you read is a salacious saga, told in lurid detail but to me, a philosophical memoir. I try not to be pornographic and apologize when it offends. I don’t confess to an adulterer’s meeting or kiss. I confess it all, the slow-motion, mind movie graphics. It’s their vivid, acid-etched memories, which changed me. To understand my story, you need to see it through my stained-glass memory pane.

It started on the night I initially crossed the forbidden threshold, next reverts to my childhood, family, schooling, puberty, engagement, and marriage to provide the wanton background props. It ends in old age's acceptance of who I was and now am. In between, are stung serial acts of infidelity. Wait until you read the epilog before pejorative judgement. I may be more like you than you think.

Don't attempt to piece together my confession to discover who I am. I write in an indecipherable code for anonymity. My story tells the truth as lived and related. The details provide my cloak's cover. 

The dairy's entry time lapses, omissions and lies are edited the best as I can remember. Are my revisions subject to future review? All history is. Each day lived, I failed to comprehend what was happening, who I was, what it meant. I amend my past with honest hindsight, yet others remind me of shared events I can’t recall. They in turn often fail to recollect what I say we did. Our past is made up of lichen recollection patches, haphazardly adhered to our memory stones. The lichen expands with time to fill the voids of what’s forgotten as we wish it were.

What really happened?

The mind distorts experiences as they occur based on our perceived what is. It then deletes, twists, and inserts memory to fit our current what is. This becomes our metamorphized past.

I try to be accurate, but memory keeps shifting. It’s not just events that change but my role in them. I write, edit, write again, and edit again. It wasn’t really that way, or was it? Reality, is it what’s believed back then, now, or tomorrow? I don’t know, a conundrum but I try to tell truthfully what happened.

As I sort out my life’s jumbled past, I try to decipher if the experience pearls that make up my life’s portrait occurred randomly or were predetermined.

Einstein's theory, space and time are interchangeable but warped by matter, means the past is now as is the future and time's an illusion caused by our movement in space, now being our current location.

Is movement through space after the big bang, therefore, predestined? Is every experience a picture frame in God’s movie production, the reel capable of turning forward or backward?  Is everything we do part of God’s scripted one-way road trip from birth to death, our life span an illusion of time as we move through space? 

It appears so.

Or are our lives an infinite quantum array of potential universes, a passage through doors we chose to open, whimsically at times passing through more than one at the same time, others with deep introspection, our selections resulting in the eventual universe we inhabit from among an infinite number of possibilities?

It appears so.

A predetermined life or one of free will, how do we distinguish which it is?

Take your pick. Our life’s either a movie show predetermined by God, or an unrehearsed stage play with infinite alternatives. I suspect it’s a little of each where the laws of physics break down in our quantum micro world.

They say two things are unavoidable, death and taxes. I add another, change. While it may be glacial or volcanic, it’s constant. Even our past changes, a rear-view mirage skewed in the fractured light of recollection as we edit it. Past hues are adjusted to fit what we think now, not back then.  What we think now, will change to fit our future memory.

I write of a life lived in a time gone, even though not so long ago. It was a different world, hard to imagine now. Past events and characters move against the candle's flickering light of memory and the diaries' opaque screen, a Balinese puppet shadow tale.

I couldn't imagine now back then. Microwave ovens, personal computers, cell phones, the internet, and social media were not predicted. Instead, flying cars, house-cleaning robots, and trips to Mars were expected.

Polaroid, Fax, Beta, VHS, floppy disks, one-hour photos, transistor radios, and the sexual revolution came and went, without a hint of prediction on their coming or going.

When young, roofs were adorned with aluminum antennas, TVs were black and white, kids watched Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club. At night adults watched Lucy and Rickie sleep in separate beds, Father Knew Best, Ed Sullivan frown at guests and Milton Berle bored the rest.

Instead of ubiquitous cell phones, a black rotary phone sat squat on its table in the center of the house. Its loud ring startled but gave no hint of who was calling. Used by all, arguments ensued when you talked too long and long-distance was done at rare bequest.

Kodak’s bulb flashed in your face, for a moment you couldn’t see. Then the picture taken took a week to view.

Music played in jukeboxes that glowed pastel colors and played three selections for a quarter.

Cars were American, each year's model an awaited event. Fins were in but Edsel was out. Studebaker, Packard, Hudson, and Nash were auto choices for a few.

Only airplanes had seat belts, everyone walked to the gate and there a machine sold flight insurance.

Banks were open from 10 to 3, stores closed Sundays, mom served the week’s dinner best and everyone except preachers took a rest.

The house front porch door was left unlocked, paperboys tossed newspapers at it, the milkman delivered bottled milk on it, the mailman dropped letters in its slot and pesky salesmen rang its bell. Monday women washed and hung clothes to dry with wooden pins on backward lines while trash burning was taboo.

Boys played marbles, flew kites, made model airplanes, and read comic books. Girls played hopscotch, skipped rope, had tea parties, and pushed buggies with dolls. The family played Monopoly, checkers, and cards. Baseball was big, football too, golf was played by few, and soccer was a game not played.

Children all got measles, polio haunted summer and moms marched for Easter Seal dimes. Doctors advertised cigarettes and you’d walk a mile for a Camel.

The service station hose bell dinged when you drove to the pump. A man rushed to be of service. He washed the windows, checked the oil, water, and air as he pumped your gas. You paid him with cash.

The station fixed cars on hydraulic hoists, sold cigarettes and soda in vending machines, provided free maps, and gave coupon stamps as boot. Each had a phone booth where you could call for a dime or talk to the operator and call collect. 

Gay meant cheerful, pot was a cooking utensil and porn wasn't a four-letter word. Catholic Mass was said in Latin, the Pope was Italian, Russians were the enemy, China was Red, and Santa Clara Valley was an agricultural wonderland.

A woman's place was at home, her work never done. A man’s place was at work, his job a life sentence. Dinner was a daily family affair cooked by mom with dad at the table’s head. The day’s events were discussed but mention of sex was never said.

It was a different world, though not so long ago, now difficult to comprehend.

Then the pill changed women. Computers, silicon wafers, integrated circuits, and the internet changed the world.

Like any story, much is unsaid. You read only what I write. I tell how a young girl turned into a woman and committed a life of adultery. Not how she would today but back then. Only women my age will relate. Those young, like every generation, will think me as Cicero said, an odious old crone.

Yes, I'm old and I’m looking backward to understand who I was yet living forward.

Chapter 3, A Poor Girl Faces the World

On the morning of June 8, 1950, I met the world in a ramshackle farmhouse, surrounded by a pear orchard. As I gasped for air, then screamed to announce the importance of my arrival, the Mexican midwife carried me outside and bathed me in cool water from a hand pump.  Properly bathed and blessed in her Mayan dialect, she carried me back to be soothed with the milk of my mother's breasts.  My father selected an auspicious spot and buried my placenta and umbilical cord.

The ranch, as orchards were called, was between Alviso, at the southern end of San Francisco Bay, Moffett Field Naval Air Station, and the little town of Santa Clara. Its trees were part of a vast lattice carpet of fruit orchards that spread from the Bay to the surrounding foothills of Santa Clara Valley. The fruit grown shifted from pear, to prune, to apricot, to cherry as the elevation rose with patches of dairy, bean, tomato, or other farms sprinkled in.

The orchard’s owner had moved into a modern home with my family occupying their dilapidated, old house providing farm work in lieu of rent. Dad interpreted my birth in the orchard as a favorable omen for our surname, Lin, 林, which means forest in Chinese. He named me, Zhen Zhu, meaning pearl, which he made me learn to write as 珍珠. Mom and a priest christened me Elizabeth.  At home, I was tagged Shu by Dad meaning virtuous, Liezel by Mom, a Tagalog diminutive of Elizabeth meaning God’s abundance and simply Sis by siblings.

None then could imagine the tech tsunami coming to change the area into Silicon Valley. I tried to locate my provenance birth ranch recently and concluded it’s either within the San Francisco 49's Football Stadium, next door at the Great America Theme Park or in the parking lot in-between. Among the throngs who visit, there is a small spot blessed with my afterbirth.

Soon after my birth, the house was demolished, we moved and continued to relocate to low rent, rural, semi-abandoned houses as three siblings were added to my older brother and me, all boys. Once in rent arrears, due to penury distress, we hastily packed our few belongings and moved at night.

In 1963, when I was thirteen, we finally settled in San Jose, off Story Road, east of Highway 101, in a vast, low-cost subdivision, known as Tropicana Village. Our eleven hundred square foot, concrete slab floor, low pitched tar and gravel