Barbara Samuel by A Piece of Heaven Page A

your life.” But she didn’t even consider not showing up.
    At lunch, Joy sat alone in the courtyard of the school, watching everybody. They all knew one another. Three of the girls were talking in a knot over a table, looking around in that way that said they were gossiping about everybody else. One girl sat by herself in the shade, her back against the wall, and nobody talked to her. Joy thought the girl might live close by, that she’d seen her at the little park at the end of the street that nobody went to except the neighborhood kids. It wasn’t much of a park. Worn-out grass, a few benches, a really old slide, some trees for shade. The teenagers smoked dope there, and though Joy didn’t do that, the way she dressed made everybody think she did, so they didn’t worry about her. She left them alone and they left her alone. Cool.
    Joy was used to being alone when she came to Taos. She’d made a couple of friends in her mom’s old neighborhood, a white guy named Derek who was pretty nice, but always wanted to put the moves on her, and a girl a little younger than she was who showed Joy how to put on eyeliner. But neither of those kids was around here today.
    She watched the other girl out of the corner of her eye, wondering if she was new or something, too, like Joy, or if she might have done something the other kids knew about and they left her alone for it.
    But it was too bright and boring outside and the worst that could happen was the girl would be a bitch. Kitty would tell her to be friendly and everything would be all right, and though Joy had learned that wasn’t always true, it wasn’t exactly untrue, either.
    She stopped at the soda machine and bought a pop and carried it over to the girl, who looked up warily from a notebook she was scribbling in. “Hi,” Joy said, and opened her Coke. She leaned on the wall, looking out at the other kids.
    “Hi,” the girl said without much interest. But she closed her notebook. After a minute she said, “You’re new here.”
    Joy nodded. “I came here from Atlanta to live with my mom.”
    “You miss him, your dad?”
    “No.” Joy lifted a shoulder.
    “My dad died in the spring,” she said. “That’s why nobody talks to me here. They think I’ll be crazy again, like I was then.”
    Intrigued, Joy slid down the wall. “What’d you do?”
    The girl shook her head slowly, her dark eyes distant, like she was looking backward. “A lot of stuff. I’m not proud of it, you know.” She shook her long hair out of her face. “What’s your name?”
    “Joy. You?”
    “Magdalena, but you can call me Maggie.” She looked right at her. “Do you smoke? I have cigarettes.”
    “Yes! My mother quit and I haven’t had any since I got here. Where do you go?”
    Maggie stood up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

AA Supplemental Materials—Just for Today

    Just for today
I will try to live through this day only, and not tackle all my problems at once. I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime.
    Just for today
I will be happy. This assumes what Abraham Lin-coln said to be true, that “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
    Just for today
I will adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires, I will take my “luck” as it comes and fit myself to it.

Six
    The only thing Luna thought about the rest of the work day was Thomas. It wasn’t conscious thought, exactly, more like wisps of him that floated around her little space—his tilted dark eyes occupying the space over the sink, his wide mouth smiling there by the phone, his long, dark, beautiful hands in the general area of the cooler. She wanted to kiss him again almost as much as she didn’t. The promise of him followed her home, a tickle on her spine, and she wondered what they’d say to each other.
    But when she saw Joy curled up in a little ball on the couch, asleep, reality vaporized