At twenty-two, Poppy Abbott felt she knew everyone worth knowing and everything that mattered. She was at the epicenter of the Los Angeles downtown arts scene. Painters, poets, songwriters all entwined socially, sexually and on occasion romantically as they changed partners as well as lofts with ease. She also privately believed she knew nothing. 
 

To the outside eye she appeared savvy and quite sophisticated. As a newly minted fashion designer having graduated from the Otis College of Art and Design, Poppy, clear-eyed when styling for those girls everyone else envied also commanded attention with her tousled free flowing blond mane, full on curvy body and warm, outsize personality. 
 

Only she knew she had never been in love. There were always men but Poppy quickly turned them into pals or brothers, or combatants, too afraid to get close enough to have her heart broken. -- Continuously at the center but yet part of a crowd, acting as the buffer to her fears and insecurity. Trust had always been an elusive concept. – It wasn’t something freely given by her family.
 

Poppy was born and raised on the fringes of the multi ethnic, middle class Fairfax district of Los Angeles, filled with a mix of beautiful, nineteen-twenty’s Spanish houses and gracious looking duplexes. Many were in need of restoration but were cheap to buy and even cheaper to rent. As an only child, she had been drawing dresses for gypsies and princesses since she was eight years old with all the time in the world to do it. She spent a great deal of her childhood on her own. Her mother ‘s expertise was in cleaning. She worked for a small, but well established dry cleaner. Her true talent lay in stain removal. She knew every concoction that could get rid of ink, blood, grease and some unmentionable stains from any garment. Betsy worked long hours and made little money but it was steady. She was a big haired, sharp-tongued blonde with an even bigger attitude, in spite of her small wallet. They lived so far above their means that Poppy had little memory of growing up in any particular house. They were always on the move. – Her mother’s fights with landlords were legendary. She had screaming fits about leaking roofs, clogged drains and other fictional but  catastrophic house issues, all in the name of getting a rent reduction. Her memories were a mash-up of beautiful tiled entryways with always one very well appointed, freshly painted main room, where Betsy believed she had everyone fooled, while serving friends and family sherry in a slightly scratched cloisonné decanter with store bought cookies on a pretentious three-tiered cake platter that she picked up at a yard sale. 
 

The rest of the rooms in the various houses they unceremoniously for a moment in time, called home, were neglected and contained whatever castaways could be filched or found. Betsy’s other must have expenditure was to provide both of them with a small but well chosen wardrobe of quality clothes, sometimes from those left at the dry cleaners, or picked up at various thrift shops. She could mend anything. She insisted on correcting Poppy’s posture and manners in order that she could walk in the world with her head held high as if to the manner born. It was so much more about her reputation than Poppy’s.
 

When the rent couldn’t be fulfilled, they packed up the good stuff and dumped the rest. It was too expensive to move and not worth the trouble as there was always junk to be found. Betsy’s other strategy was to reel Poppy’s father, her occasional husband back into the fold — when her whim and financial desperation were in tandem. The carrot was Poppy. Her mother had been married twice before. Both times, she ate her husband’s for dinner. But the divorces were swift and clean as there were no children to take into consideration. That changed when she accidentally became pregnant with Poppy. She became the prize that neither of them wanted to give to the other. Betsy was louder, scrappier and willing to fight dirty. Lashing out at Poppy or him was included with breakfast, lunch and dinner. The sound of a fork slamming onto a plate was the sound that started every terrorizing episode.

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© 2022 monica parker

. . . . . . to be continued.....