was twenty and defiant again. She was ready to take on the world.

He could read the look well because it was one he saw in his own eyes that morning in the mirror. ( Scene Break)

Jared was the odd man out. Helen and Tori yapped like they

exit ramp for unscheduled, for what he knew, stop number two. He didn't even bother to ask why they were heading into the heart of the city, where bumper to bumper cars crawled between stoplights and pedesterians.

had known each other for years. With the younger woman around, Helen lost her gruff facade and became almost motherly, compared to his previous determination that she was combat ready. Jared slouched against the window and watched as they merged in between two tractor trailers to slide onto the

She climbed the three stairs to the doorway and pecked the older woman's cheek. "Good bye, mama."

"Take good care," each word was said slow by the mother.

Tori's face softened into that of a child on her first day of school, then an instant later she

fantasized about, which made them pretty damn spectacular.

"Baby girl, are you sure this is what you want to do?"

Jared turned and saw a woman standing on the concrete porch, holding the screen door open with one hand. Dressed in a nightgown from the last century and a winter coat that hung open on her bulbous body, she frowned down at them.

"Please don't start this again," Tori said

"You gonna chase Ed all the way to that there Calle fornia and for what? If he wanted you, baby girl, he would have taken you with him."

The daughter gave her mother a look filled with embrassement and pity.

Jared picked up one suitcase and asked her, "Victoria, right?"

"Call me Tori. Are you Helen's son?"

"What? No, no, no. Just another passenger like you."

He was trying hard not to stare at her lips, full and red and better than any he

around it to the sidewalk. Before he could grab the ancient rusted gate, the front door opened. For the first time that morning his lips turned up into a smile.

Jared prayed that the Tyra Banks look alike dragging the two

He pushed through the gate and called out, "I'll get that for you."

She raised her head, sending her brown curls tumbling, and looked at him for the first time. Jared stalled in his tracks.

Helen beeped the horn, two short hard blasts and he was moving again.

suitcases down the porch stairs was Victoria and not her sister or cousin. But with the way his life typically went, this hottie coming toward him was probably Victoria's granddaughter and he would be stuck sharing the backseat with a octogenarian.

now, lived off his parents and still complained about not having it good enough.

When they stopped in front of a ranch style brown brick home, Helen said "Go knock, will you?"

Jared climbed out of the minivan and walked

But to Jared it was real in a way a gated community could never be. People who lived here were the types that had to claw and fight for everything they ever got in life. Unlike him, who until

at the turn of the last century. To some in this region this town a no man's land, the badlands, the place they would not think of entering even if the promise of millons were waiting for them.

limits only ten minutes after he was plucked from the curb.

They entered Gary, Indiana- birthplace of Jacko and most of his wacky brothers and sisters- with its worn down storefronts that were once shiny and hopeful

He wanted to pepper Helen with questions but lacked the energy to do so. Instead Jared settled back in the seat and stared out the window as they moved away from his neighborhood, crossing the city

sounded like one his Dad might put on him.

He shrugged.

Helen said, "Victoria needs the front seat because she gets car sick sometimes. She needs easy access to the window."

Jared's hopes that Victoria was any more pleasant than Helen started to fade.

country journey would go. Was Victoria the only added guest? Or would people be packed in this minivan like shoes in the closet of those chicks on Sex in the City, without enough room to breath or think.

"So someone else is coming on with us? Victoria?" At that moment Jared realized just how little he knew about the plans Helen had for the way their cross

"I said that already, didn't I?" asked Helen "You aren't one of those slacker kids who smokes the doobie and can't keep a thought in his head for five seconds, are you?" Jared thought the description

Helen turned onto Broadway Avenue, the main throughfare in town, and headed north toward Chicago. Jared's head jerked right, to the south, the direction the expressway entrance ramp was located.

more than his hometown could say for itself.

Helen threw it in drive and the minivan creeped its way out of the sleepy suburb. Jared waited till they rolled past his former school, Garfield High home of the cougars, at the end of the block before he asked,

a bridge or, worse, working at McDonald's, there would be miles and miles of sandy gorgeous shoreline filled with look alike Lindseys and wanna be Britneys. And that was

on each other under the California sun. No matter how much of a rat trap the apartment he found might be, no matter if he ended up under

any Victoria. Still Jared moved to the backseat without complaint. His mind was already in LA watching a bikini clad group of hotties rub sun tan lotion

to the side.

The tic, more than her words, stopped him in mid-motion.

She added, “Victoria called shotgun.”

This is the first he had heard of

he stepped into the street and around the van to the passenger door. “You can’t sit there,” Helen said, then jerked her head quickly twice

me all day. Lets get a move on.”

Jared didn’t spare a backwards glance at the brick ranch house he grew up in as

Helen nodded, confirming this indeed was his riding companion for the next few days, and told him “Well don’t stand there gaping at

If they started accepting the near elderly. She was no Katie, no Heidi, no Giselle. More like a Rosie O' Donnel.

Her red frizzy hair had definite strands of gray peeking through it, her bulky figure doubling his starved artist frame.