San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Teens’ lies spiral out of control in ’80s S.F.
One night, back when I was in high school, I witnessed a crime.
A group of privileged, popular boys from my small Connecticut town had sneaked onto the school’s grounds and vandalized one of the buildings. They spraypainted the walls and smashed some of the windows.
My friends and I happened to be driving by and witnessed what occurred. None of us did anything about it in the moment. But after we each sped home, someone told her parents, who called the police.
I can distinctly remember not knowing what to do. Should I tell the cops what — and who — I saw that night, knowing I would be ostracized at school for snitching? Or should I deny everything and insist that I — no, we all — saw nothing?
It’s amusing now to think about the drama that unfolded over the next few months after the truth of what went down that night finally came out. But at the time, it caused me serious anxiety. I honestly felt the decision I made that night would determine the course of the rest of my life.
That deep, burning selfconsciousness and particular strain of selfabsorption that can only stem from a sheltered existence are at the heart of Vendela Vida’s latest novel, “We Run the Tides.” Set during the 1980s, high up on the bluffs of San Francisco’s ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood with unobstructed views of the Golden Gate Bridge, and where “everything ugly is hidden,” the book follows a tightknit crew of 13yearold friends — Julia, Faith, Eulabee and their precocious, glamorous leader, Maria Fabiola.
“Separately we are good girls. We behave,” the book’s studious yet haughty narrator, Eulabee, explains early on. “Together, some strange alchemy occurs and we are trouble.” The foursome knows every inch of the area, including how to navigate the roiling tides, how to sweettalk their teachers at the Spragg School for Girls and, of course, “where the boys live.”
They also know how to lie. What starts out as an isolated incident — the girls gain attention after reporting that a man exposed himself to them on their walk to school (he didn’t) — soon blossoms into a series of increasingly dire (read: increasingly salacious) situations, including Maria Fabiola’s alleged kidnapping and triumphant return, Eulabee’s reputed disappearance, and a third more serious event that leads news crews to dub the seemingly connected cases the “Sea Cliff Seizures.”
But this isn’t just a glossy portrait of entitled rich kids gone off the rails. It’s a nuanced look at what happens when one member of a group — in this case, Eulabee — decides to go against the grain and bring truth (and, therefore, lies) to light, despite the consequences. The repercussions of that choice — social shunning, internal confusion, existential despair — not only reveal the dark side of adolescence, they’re a little heartbreaking too.
There are strands of this brisk and dramaheavy narrative that either warrant more development or don’t quite gel — the random suicide of Faith’s father without any leadup or explanation, for
“We Run the Tides”
By Vendela Vida (Ecco; 272 pages; $26.99)
instance, or the cartoonish gullibility of the authority figures at school that makes them seem like stock standins rather than real people.
Still, there’s something naughty, almost gleeful about this nostalgiasoaked portrayal of pretechboom San Francisco that keeps the pages turning.
“We Run the Tides” harks back to a precellphone, presocialmedia era, when being a girl on the cusp of adulthood just meant owning a pair of beatup, perfectly brokenin Doc Martens; cruising with your pals and flirting with cute boys on the beach; and sipping stolen booze from your parents’ rarely monitored liquor cabinet.
That, coupled with a final chapter involving a chance encounter decades later that adds both perspective and muchneeded depth to the story, makes Vida’s foray into the frothy turmoil of postpubescence worth a gander.
Alexis Burling’s reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Oregonian. Email: books@ sfchronicle.com