Ann Brashares - The Last Summer (of You and Me) Read Online Free PDF Page B

had never been blond. She had dark hair that tangled easily, as Alice knew from her attempts to trim it. Even when she was little, she never let Judy brush it. It was always cut straight around to a length somewhere between her chin and her shoulders, often tucked behind her ears. Her hair made her look younger than she was, and her freckles made her look even younger than that.

    Since about the age of thirteen, Alice had grown used to being mistaken for the older sister. That was fine. What got tiresome were the protests of disbelief when Alice corrected the mistake. She felt awkward about it sometimes--more for Riley's sake than for her own, she thought. But in truth, she wasn't sure if Riley cared.

    "You sure there are no specials?" Her mother smiled mischie vously.

    "Mom," Alice snapped. Her mother was asking only because she wanted to make Alice recite them, not because she cared what they were. Year after year, the food at the yacht club was bad. Only first-time customers ever ordered anything more ambitious than a hamburger. Alice walked back to the kitchen. If she got the order in fast, she could get them out faster.

    From the back, she saw the second of her four tables fill. It was the Kimballs and some friends of theirs she didn't know. They watched her expectantly, beaming like parents as she came over.

    "Can I get anyone a drink?" she asked self-consciously.

    It was strange the things you knew about people here. She knew, for instance, that the Kimballs had lost a child when it was

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    still a baby. For everything Mrs. Kimball did or said or wore, even the way she served a tennis ball or ordered a glass of wine, Alice felt her loss.

    She knew that Mr. Barger, who settled in at table four, had left his wife the very day their youngest kid, Ellie, went to college. Now he had a new house right on the beach and a new wife who had fake-looking teeth, and every hostess knew the perils of seat ing the old Mrs. Barger too close to the new one. Alice resisted the urge to return the new wife's friendliness in deference to Ellie, who really hated her.

    "Don't you look cute!" the new Mrs. Barger erupted.

    Alice knew, upon taking the job, that she'd have to wear the royal-blue polo and the jaunty sailor's cap, but she didn't realize how much they would mortify her.

    How else was she going to earn money here? She was taking out massive loans for law-school tuition, and still she needed more for living expenses. You had to work twice as many hours here, because the pay was bad. The pay was bad because most of the families were prosperous and the kids were working for show. By day she had her regular babysitting jobs, but by night . . . what else was there?

    It was hard to get hired to wait tables at one of the good restau rants in Fair Harbor or Ocean Beach, because there people actually tipped. You couldn't keep professionals, so the staff was a rotating cast of island kids, playing at working, serving their parents. The two other waitresses on her shift were two of the flakiest girls she knew.

    It brought to mind the problem of babysitting for the children of family friends. They underpaid you because they felt they

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    bestowed a favor by recognizing you as something other than a child yourself. Friends and favors made a mess of commerce, in Alice's opinion.

    When she scuttled to the bar to put the Kimball order in, she realized she'd forgotten about her parents' drinks. Well, there was little tip to be had or lost.

    By nine o'clock, her parents had moved on to a friends' get- together and Alice's feet were throbbing. Now the bar area was filling up with her friends, and eventually Paul appeared, as she both hoped and feared he would. It took all of her courage to face him with the sailor hat on.

    "Oh, Alice," he said.

    Something about it startled her, and she realized, as she fled to the kitchen to catch her breath, what it was: He said her