Dedication Read Online Free PDF Page A

me nineteen for a stroll home,” I reflexively surrender to his pressingly lighter current. “Have you seen Jake Sharpe’s existence?”
    “I’m sure MSNBC will be doing a two-hour feature of it at nine.” Mom stalks over to the window, sticks her head out, inhales deeply, then leans back in, closing it. “Followed by five minutes on Kyrgyzstan,” she mutters as she swivels the lock.
    “I’m going upstairs to change.” I move toward the stairs, reaching down to pick up my messenger bag and purse from the floor.
    “Why not run over like that, looking as deranged as this idea,” she hollers after me.
    “Thanks,” I call back flatly as I raise the bags. “I appreciate the support. I’ll be sure to return it as you sketch out the next thirty years of your lives with a seashell.”
    I stand, waiting for them to round the corner, defend themselves, make their argument, go there. But instead I hear the set click back on, the volume rapidly swelling as reports of the coup’s toll continue to mount.

SEVENTH GRADE
     
    I lift the brittle ends of my hair to my nose, nauseated by the sweet stench of Salon Selectives I’ve sprayed, squirted and squeezed over the last two hours of alternated crimping and curling with Michelle Walker’s mother’s beauty supplies. “My hair is broom straw,” I mutter to Laura as she listlessly raises and lowers the trays of the professional expanding makeup box at this slumberless slumber party.
    “God, what time is it even?” she asks, dropping a tube of liquid eyeliner onto the gold-flecked Formica counter of the basement bathroom Mrs. Walker has rigged as her salon. “It’s so bright in here it could be lunchtime.” She squints against the glare from the baseball-shaped bulbs framing the mirror, as if this were a Hollywood dressing room and Mrs. Walker doesn’t primp wedged between a dented Maytag and a badly burnt ironing board.
    JenniferTwo wipes off yet another shade and I reflexively lick my own lips at the sight of the prickly irritation spreading around her mouth. “Two forty.”
    “Two forty A . M .?” Laura asks as a wave of exhaustion breaks over the pizza, caramel corn, Coke, and Carvel birthday cake making a gushy mess in my stomach.
    “Yup,” she nods, two curlers flapping against her face.
    “The movie must be done by now.” I flick the OFF buttons on the heating devices that have been keeping those of us not wanting to watch the third seventies-era horror video in a row or examine Mr. Walker’s Penthouse stash again, entertained.
    All of a sudden Stephanie Brauer pushes the door open, bouncing in her long T-shirt, knees pressed together. “Movemovemove, I’ve gotta pee!” The sound of a chain saw revving slips in behind her before she pulls the door shut and dodges between us to the saloon-style shutters at the far end of the room.
    “Is the movie almost done?” Laura asks, wilting. She rubs her Cleopatra eyes.
    “Oops.” I point to the black football player streaks. “Bad move, Bubba.”
    She wearily raises her index fingers and takes in their smudged tips. “Crap.”
    “Ooh, gross,” Stephanie groans. “Michelle’s dad’s, like, underwear is hanging up in here. Gross,” she repeats over the flushing toilet.
    “He moved out and left his underwear?” Laura asks as Stephanie pushes back through the sprung shutters. “That’s so weird. Don’t you guys think it’s so weird?”
    While Stephanie retreats to the mirror, Laura holds open one of the doors so the three of us can cram into the toilet alcove. Sure enough, on a white plastic rack over the sink hang five pairs of Hanes boxers, dried stiff.
    “C’mon, guys.” JenniferTwo backs out and starts clacking the lipsticks into their plastic slots. “We better put this stuff where we found it or she’ll spaz.”
    “Did Michelle know?” Stephanie asks, and JenniferTwo, self-appointed guardian of Michelle, pauses, her hand full of warped hotsticks halfway-shoved in their case.