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area pretending to look for the trash. I walked to the sink and started
to pour out what little soda was left in the can. With my left hand, I casually
reached for the phone on the counter. Before I could lift it off the receiver I
felt her behind me. I stopped dead. One hand on the receiver, one hand still
dangling the soda can over the sink. Tiny, quiet little Moe was holding a knife
to my neck.
          “Whoa, Moe, no
need for that. I just wanted to make a call. Let my parents know where I was.
They’ll be worried and all.”
          She removed the
knife and I turned around and saw that she was giving me the same look she gave
me when I asked if all the rooms were this nice. No, little unassuming Moe was
no dummy. She was small and she was quiet, but she had my number. Heck, maybe
she was me a few years back. I didn’t know.
          I stammered an
apology. “I’m just scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Do you
know? Why won’t you say anything to me? If you could just tell me what’s
happening or what I can expect I think I could handle it better.”
          She was shorter
than me, but we were standing so close I was able to get a really good look at
her face. She had pretty eyes, even with all the makeup, and I could tell she
had beautiful skin. I hadn’t seen her smile yet so I couldn’t comment on her
teeth.
          She showed no
emotion as she stared back at me. I was lost. I was alone. This little would-be
friend was not a friend. She was doing her job.
          She opened her
mouth slightly as if to say something. Finally, maybe an answer. A word of comfort. Anything.
          It was then that
I noticed Moe didn’t have a tongue.

Chapter Four

 
    For the
first time in my life, I uttered a word that had never before crossed my lips: “Mom.”
I wanted my mother.
          I was born on
Valentine’s Day 1960. My mother named me Guinevere Love Lemon. Yes, that’s my
real name. In order to understand how I got that name you would have to
understand my hopelessly romantic, hippie mother, Delia. And before you
consider judging her for giving me such a ridiculous name, know that my name is
what would ultimately lead to the fall of Satan’s Army.
          Delia
Lemon got pregnant with me while living in a commune and never cared to try to
identify my father. She met my stepfather, Vince, at a war protest when I was
around six years old, and they were married three years later at Woodstock. Oh
yeah, I went to Woodstock. I say they were married, but I don’t know if it was
legal. She continued to use her own last name, Lemon.
          She
was way too cool to be a mom, so I grew up calling her Delia. Delia Lemon was
quite the character. I like to compare her to the mother from the Jeannie C.
Riley song, “Harper Valley PTA.” You know the song—the PTA sends a note
home to the little girl’s mother saying they objected to how she was raising
her daughter. That mom goes to the next PTA meeting and basically rips everyone
a new one.
          The
problem with that comparison is I think the mom from that song cared more about
her daughter and her reputation than Delia cared about me. Delia wasn’t a bad
person. She was just indifferent to rules. She truly didn’t care what people
thought. She was the ultimate flower child. She would just go with the flow.
          I
still remember my first grade teacher’s horror when she discovered I didn’t
call my mother “Mommy.” I called her by her first name. Always had. I remember
asking Delia once who my mommy was, because all my friends had mommies, and she
brushed it off with a laugh explaining she didn’t believe in labels. I was too
young to understand what that meant.
          Delia
worked at a health food store before health food stores were popular. She grew
her own herbs and her own pot. She took in stray animals. She never wore a bra
and her wardrobe consisted of tank tops, tube tops and