Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

my appearance that I was one of them .
    My sisters and I come in two versions: Model A and Model B.
    The As are tall, wholesome-looking, and, if left unchecked, have brick-shit-house tendencies. I am a text-book Model A. My eldest sister, Claire, and the sister next in line to me, Rachel, are also Model As.
    Model Bs, on the other hand, are small, kitten-cute and gorgeous.
    With their long dark hair, slanty green eyes, and slender limbs, the two youngest sister, Anna and Helen, are both clear-cut examples of the genre. Though Anna is nearly

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    three years older than Helen, they look almost like twins. Sometimes even our mother can't tell them apart—although that's probably as much to do with her not wearing her glasses as their appearance, now that I come to think of it. To make it easy, Anna—a neo-hip-pie—dresses as though she's been rummaging through the dressing-up box. Helen is the one with the air of psychosis.
    Model As share the common characteristics of being tall and strong. Not necessarily fat. Not necessarily . Indeed, Model As have been known to look willowy and slender. If they're in the grip of anorexia, that is—not as unlikely as it sounds. It's certainly happened, although not, sadly, to me. I'd never really had an eating disorder; apparently I didn't have the imagination, Helen told me.
    However, I mightn't have an eating disorder, but I suspected I had a mild problem with another form of bulimia—shopping bulimia. It seemed as if I was always splurging on stuff, then trying to return it. In fact it had recently caused a huge argument that involved most of my family. Helen had been lamenting about how hard it was to live on what she got paid as a makeup artist when she suddenly rounded on me and said, accusingly, “You're good with money.”
    This happened a lot; they referred to me as clean living and sporty—even though I hadn't played any sports since living in Chicago—and painted a picture of me that was years, probably decades, out of date. My parents wholly approved of this sepia-tinted version of me, but my younger sisters—affectionately, mind—treated me as a figure of fun. Most of the time I humored them, but that particular day I suddenly balked against being—af-fectionately, of course—depicted as life-crushingly dull.
    “In what way am I good with money?”
    “Not living beyond your means. Thinking carefully before you buy stuff, that sort of thing,” Helen said scathingly.
    “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, hahaha.”
    “I'm not good with money,” I said sharply.

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    “You are!” they chorused—my parents with admiration, Helen without.
    “She's not,” Garv said.
    “Thank you,” I said, turning briefly to him.
    “You are so! I bet you've a huge stash of cash in a cookie tin under your bed.”
    “She wouldn't keep it in a cookie tin,” Dad said, defending me against Helen. “You don't get any interest in cookie tins. She has her savings in a high-interest account.”
    “What savings? I don't have any savings!”
    “But you've a pension fund?” Dad asked anxiously.
    “That's different, that's not savings and you don't get it till you're sixty. And I'm always buying things I don't need.”
    “Then you take them back.”
    “But they don't always give refunds. Sometimes they only give store credits, so that's the same as spending money.” My voice was rising. “And sometimes they go out of date before I use them.”
    “No!” Mum was appalled.
    “Well, I bet you pay your credit card off in full every month,”
    Helen persisted.
    “I DON'T pay my credit card off in full every month.” They were all slightly openmouthed at my unexpected fury. “Only SOME
    MONTHS!”
    “Oh, rock ‘n’ roll .”
    I knew it was a little strange to be having this argument, I knew people argued about money—but usually they were being accused of spending too much and insisting that they didn't, not the other way round. So overwrought was I