Knew all about America from the brochures and TV. Imagined themselves drinking daiquiris under the palm trees and blue movie skies. ’Cept it wasn’t the big buck agents, the surf and Disney pets that wanted them. No Mickey and his lovely first lady Minnie in her lickle white gloves to welcome Billy and Girl to the land of plentiful. No TexMex was to pass their lips. No tax-free shopping in Tijuana. No healthy walks through miles of mall to stretch the legs and get blood circulating pronto to the remaining shards of Billy and Girl heart-hacked with English weather problems. No Florida crocs and beauty-queen mermaids to tickle their pain history and stretch lips into knowing kitsch smiles. Girl was never to become a Nevada cowgirl sprayed into denim and photographed for gentlemen’s leisure mags. She thought she would be wearing high-cut orange bathers and shooshing her peroxide fluffy hair when she spoke to male lifeguards all muscle and morality and megahormone narratives. Poor Girl.
