Rhonda from Arizona

      Rhonda  was raised by her grandmother in a luxurious retirement community in Arizona.
      Raisa took charge of raising her only grandchild when Rhonda's mother Billie was arrested on drug possession charges in a raid on a Lombard Street "horse" den in San Francisco, and swearing that she would never give Rhonda back to Billie, the 66-year-old grandmother took complete charge of her 4-year-old granddaughter, making Rhonda the one and only year-round child resident of the Shining Canyon  Village right outside Phoenix, Arizona.  She'd had to go before the Village Board of Directors to plead her case, but without much protest or resistance (except from that one pesky woman named Dorothy who lived down her street), Raisa was granted permission to bring her "poor, drug-addicted - from-birth orphaned granddaughter"  to live with her: it would give Shining Canyon Village a mission, and distinguish it from all the other carved-from-the-desert retirement communities surrounding them. They would have their very own child for the entire Village to raise.
      Gladstone Payton - the Jamaican doctor who had delivered Rhonda in Arizona, and had subsequently become her obstetrician in Shining Canyon Village - used to joke with Rhonda that he and she were the only two "outsiders" in the otherwise white,  elderly, conventional population there, and from Dr. Payton, Rhonda learned about the wider world. He was the only person of color throughout her  childhood, and at first, Rhonda thought he was that dark because he had spent a lot of time out in the sunshine.  But eventually he explained to her about where he was born - his beautiful Jamaica - and even at an early age, Rhonda determined to go there, visit its gentle rolling hills and wide ocean, and maybe even live among the kind, colorful people, all of whom, she imagined, were as interesting as Dr. Glad.
      Another thing she decided, as she grew into her teen years, was to one day settle and live in a place that had cloudy weather, and that also had people younger than 66 years of age.  As much as she adored her grandmother, who, by the way, did not allow her to watch television more than one hour each evening, it didn't take Rhonda long to realize there was a entire world full of difference out beyond the flat desert confines.  She soon knew way deep within that she would simply have to leave all that was familiar as soon as she could, and go find her mother, who kept having her sentence prolonged because of bad behavior in her correctional institution near San Francisco.
      So, on a day soon after her graduation from high school, Rhonda got into her used Ford Focus - a graduation gift from the Retirement Village - and drove the twelve hours it took to arrive in the City by the Bay.  Her San Francisco life was soon to begin.