Cupcake Read Online Free PDF

meant ruining the fresh polish by not letting it dry long enough.
    No. I was just not hearing it.
    I told lisBETH, "Wrong. You obviously need to spend more time scamming the baseball fields and basketball courts in Central Park. And remember about George, the hot ambulance driver? He finally called me and asked me out. We made plans to get together once my cast came off. And lookee here ..."I swung my healed
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    castless leg in the air, the one with the set of toes not currently being polished. "Me all fixed up and ready for a fix-up."
    Before lisBETH's proclamation, I'd considered canceling the date with George. He happened to call when I was coming down off the last painkiller left in my dresser drawer after Autumn tossed my stash. In that moment I was so groggy and happy I would have accepted a date with Oscar the Grouch--and planned to do some serious feeling up on the green furry beast too. Yeah, stooping to pharmaceutical-inspired sex fantasies about garbage-can Sesame Street characters--that had to be the best Just Say No drug lecture a girl in a leg cast could ever receive to make her go cold turkey off the meds.
    The sober truth is, I may have new curves to flaunt, and hormones yearning for action, but in outright defiance of my Plan, my heart is not over Shrimp. Autumn's right. I talk a big talk, but I am not ready to walk the walk. I don't know if I ever will be. Ready. Or over Shrimp.
    That didn't stop me from refuting lisBETH. I'd only spent years developing this skill with my mother. It's like a sport, one of the few I excel at. I said, "George and I made plans to go see some apocalyptic action movie--his choice not mine, by the way--not some sensitive art-house flick about a complicated trio of sexually confused Brazilian petty thief street urchins. So not only am I confident George has the all clear on the heterosexual radar, but further,
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    he might think he's getting death and destruction in stereo surround sound on this date, but what he'll really be getting is a seat at the top corner of the theater and acts two and three drowned out by some serious making out. Count on it."
    The nail shop girl paused from applying the blue coat on my pinky toe to smile up at me. "That's what I'm talkin' about," she said.
    My new best friend. "What's your name?" I asked her. I wanted to kidnap her to the nearest coffee shop and tell her all about Shrimp, and my big mistake in letting my true love get away, like over one mega-whopper-mocha oozing with whipped cream. Hopefully nail shop girl would have a similar tale of woe to share that would convert us into instant compadres without us ever having to bother with the getting-to-know-you grace period for new friendships.
    "Constanza Guadalupe Lourdes Maria," she said. Constanza Guadalupe Lourdes Maria had long black hair like mine, but way curlier and separated into two ponytail bunches tied at the nape of her neck. Her beautiful collection of names was highlighted by her lovely olive-of-indiscriminate-extraction skin tone--she could easily have passed for Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or South Asian, although her tight-white belly T-shirt announced DR: DAMN RIGHT I'M FROM DOMINICAN REPUBLIC! over a picture of the red, white, and blue DR flag. She added, "But you can call me Chucky. Everyone does."
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    "Why's that?"
    She shrugged. "A couple bad hair days in fourth grade and some mean mofo kids on the playground, and here I am. Chucky, like the crazy doll. Gotta tell you, though. I feel more like a Chucky than a Constanza."
    "Good enough for me, Chucky," I said. I understand about spiritual affiliations with dolls. "You have a boyfriend?"
    "Yup." She took a laminated photograph out of her rear jeans pocket. "That's Tyrell." Despite the true love sigh that escaped her mouth as she handed over the picture, I felt sure Chucky had a past littered with boy heartache, so I could forgive her the Tyrell happiness.
    Not only was Tyrell a stone-faced, crew-cut babe of a Marine, he also