Coast Road Read Online Free PDF Page A

town. It doesn't make it onto maps. What did you doodle? " "Oh, people, birds, animals, fish, anything that moves.
    I like doing what a camera does, capturing an instant."
    "Are you still doodling? " he asked in response to her use of the present tense.
    She lifted a shoulder, shy, maybe modest. "I like to think it's more.
    I'm hoping to paint for a living."
    "With or without a day job? " Jack asked. The average artist barely earned enough to eat. Unless Rachel was significantly better than average, she would have a tough time paying the bills.
    She wrapped her arms around her middle. Quietly, almost sadly, she said, "I'm lucky. Those businesses keep selling. My mom heads one of them now. They think I'm crazy to be here doing this. Art isn't business. They want me back in the city wearing designer dresses with a designer handbag and imported boots." She took a fresh breath. "Do you have siblings? " "Five brothers and a sister, " he said, though it had nothing to do with anything. He rarely talked about family. The people he was with rarely asked.
    Not only had Rachel asked, but those wonderful eyes of hers lit up with his answer. "Six? That's great. I don't have any."
    "That's why you think it's great. There were seven of us born in ten years, living with two parents in a three-bedroom house. I was the lucky one.
    Summers, I got the porch."
    "What are the others doing now? Are they all over the country? Are any of them out here? " "They're back home.
    I'm the only one who made it out." Her eyes grew. "Really? Why you?
    How? " "Scholarship. Work-study. Desperation. I had to leave.
    I don't get along with my family."
    "Why not? " she asked in such an innocent way that he actually answered.
    "They're negative. Always criticizing to cover up for what they lack, but the only thing they really lack is ambition. My dad could done anything he wanted�he's a bright guy�only, he got stuck in a potato processing plant and never got out. My brothers are going to be just like him, different jobs, same wasted potential. I went to college, which makes what they're doing seem smaller. They'll never forgive me for that."
    "I'm so sorry." He smiled. "Not your fault."
    "Then you don't go home much? " "No. And you? Back to New York? " She crinkled her nose. "I'm not a city person. When I'm there, I'm stuck doing all the things I hate."
    "Don't you have friends there? " "A few. We talk. I've never had to go around with a crowd. How about you? Got a roommate? " "Not on your life. I had enough of those growing up to never want another one, at least not of the same sex.
    What's your favorite thing in Tucson? " "The desert. What's yours? " "The Santa Catalinas." Again those eyes lit, gold more than hazel.
    "Do you hike? " When he nodded, she said, "Me, too. When do you have time? Are you taking a full course load? How many hours a week do you have to give to Obermeyer? " Jack answered her questions and asked more of his own. When she answered those without seeming to mind, he asked more again, and she asked her share right back. She wasn't judgmental, just curious.
    She seemed as interested in where he'd been, what he'd done, what he liked and didn't like as he was in her answers. They talked nonstop until Rachel's clothes were clean, dry, and folded. When, arms loaded, they finally left the laundromat, he knew three times as much about her as he knew about Celeste.
    Taking that as a message of some sort, he broke up with Celeste the next day, called Rachel, and met her for pizza. They picked right up where they had left off at the laundromat.
    Jack was fascinated. He had never been a talker. He didn't like baring his thoughts and ideas, held them close to the vest, but there was something about Rachel that felt . . . safe, there it was agsun.
    She was gentle. She was interested. She was smart. Being as much of a loner as he was, she seemed just as startled as he to be opening up to a virtual stranger, but they gave each other permission. He