When I heard we were moving to Florida, I was a little excited once I got over the initial disappointment. I’m not exactly a beach person, to the extent that I cover up with long-sleeved shirts and hats and usually head for the closest shade umbrella to protect my lily-white skin. But I like the salty smell and thumping sound of waves as much as the next person. I love the idea of a beach, if not the actual beach. There’s an excitement that has everything to do with it being the end of land and the mystery of what’s on the opposite side.
In my mind, I envisioned South Beach in Miami—a billion-dollar strip of sand, crawling with tourists from all over the world. A paradise for shoppers, partygoers, and people watchers. And who doesn’t like to watch people? I like it as much as anyone else.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t envision was the Redneck Riviera, which is a derogatory name for what the people here prefer to call the Emerald Coast. I didn’t know the panhandle of Florida is more like Alabama than Florida—very much the Deep South. The language spoken here is Deep Southern. And that was a pretty good sign I was doomed to be an outsider once again, since I didn’t have a clue how to speak it.
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The day after my school year ended, my mom and I hopped on an eastward bound plane. The flight from California took all day with a couple of plane transfers and a long layover in the Atlanta airport. Each time we transferred, our planes got smaller and smaller until we finally squeezed into a thirty seat propeller plane, which was so noisy we had to yell at each other just to be heard. When we landed in the Sugar Dunes Airport late that night, all I could think about was getting to our new house and climbing into bed.
It was just barely into the month of June and already past midnight, so I wasn’t prepared for the blast of wet hot that hit me as soon as the flight attendant wrestled open the exit door. I’d worked on my hair before we left in order to make a sleek and shiny first impression in my new hometown, but it was hopeless. As soon as I got off the plane, my hair twisted and frizzed until I looked like Medusa, and if you don’t know who she is, let’s just say she had snakes for hair.
Lesson One. I had to give up on my Emma Stone dreams and accept the Ronald McDonald look. Either that or shave my head.
Inside the airport terminal, the temperature was sub-freezing.
Lesson Two. People in this part of the country liked it cold. Really cold. Except when they were outside and it was really hot. So my hypothalamus, which I didn’t even know I had until then and which, by the way, is that little gizmo in your brain that regulates your body temperature among other things, was destined for a state of constant confusion.
“There’s your dad!” Mom grabbed me by the arm and pointed straight ahead past the security checkpoint. It’d been a month since we’d seen him and her fast walk turned into a trot and then a full-out run as she dragged her rolling carry-on bag behind her. I did my best to keep up.
Mom and Dad fell into each other’s arms, hugging and kissing like long-lost lovers, (which technically they were) and which would’ve been totally embarrassing if I actually knew anyone within a radius of 2,000 miles, but since I didn’t . . . let the good times roll, for all I care. I gave them a moment of privacy before inserting myself into their zone of love.
“Babe!” Dad finally came up for air. “You look fantastic!” (I didn’t.) “I’ve missed you so much.” (Okay, I actually missed him too.) “Let’s go pick up your luggage and then get you two home.”
Mental—no actual—fist pump!
Home. It sounded so nice.
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Since it was dark, I couldn’t see much of Sugar Dunes, but I could smell the pine trees. Yep. Pine trees when I was expecting palm trees. At that point I was still hoping for Miami Beach, and the salty beach smell was unmistakable. But when we finally got our bags and loaded up the truck and started driving, all that was visible for miles and miles on either side of the two-lane highway were the dark silhouettes of a pine forest and the brightest night sky I’d ever seen. The highway was buffered by a strip of palmetto shrubs, and it seemed like we’d been driving forever when it finally spit us out onto a sand and gravel road. A beat-up, lopsided street sign that said Trout Lane didn’t sound too promising. I had to live on a street named after a fish? Dad turned the truck into a driveway where the mailbox was marked “22.” As far as I could tell, there weren’t any other houses on this street, so I wasn’t sure why we were 22 instead of one or maybe even 1000. But there it was, 22 Trout Lane.
Welcome home again, Babe.