Firefly Island Read Online Free PDF Page B

umpteenth time. Daniel went down to the Chinese restaurant on the corner and bought soup for us. When he came back, he fixed trays and then got to work cleaning up the offal of towels, clothes, DVDs, toys, and empty Pedialite bottles that had overtaken the apartment during our quest to survive. The phone rang while he was carrying an armload of stuff to Nick’s toy box. He took the call in the bedroom. When he came out, he was as pale as Nick and me.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” I asked. He looked like someone had died. I immediately thought of his family in Ohio. I only knew what Daniel had told me. He had a mom, dad, grandparents, and various cousins, aunts, and uncles all living within a thirty-mile radius, and a brother who lived in Boston with his wife and kids. Like my parents, Daniel’s parents still owned the house he’d grown up in. I hoped the call hadn’t brought bad news—a car accident or something.
    â€œI think I just got offered a job,” he said, his jaw hanging slack after the words, a hint of five o’clock shadow testifying to the fact that, in his rush to return home to Nick and me, he hadn’t even shaved this morning.
    â€œA job?” That didn’t sound like bad news. Why the horrified expression?
    He nodded slowly, his eyes shifting toward the bedroom doorway, as if the spirit of something large and life-altering were hovering there, and he expected it to come storming up the hallway any moment.
    His next two words explained everything. “In Texas.”

The course of true love never did run smooth.
    â€”William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(Left by Brent, who spent the night outside the tent)
Chapter 3

    A  job.
    In.
    Texas.
    I heard it that way, as if it were several sentences rather than one. My life flashed before my eyes—two lives, actually. Two completely different possibilities. In one, I was sitting at a table with the Gymies again, a week from now or maybe a month, eating round-robin pie, engaged in yet another conversation about video game characters, Disney animation, and fascinating computer-related topics like bits, bytes, and black-hole servers. Meanwhile, Daniel and Nick were far, far away in Texas. Pretty close to the other side of the world.
    In the opposing scenario, I was packing my pumps and my black suit, those knockoff designer purses I loved so much, and the rest of my worldly belongings. Outside the window, a moving man with a dolly was pushing my life up the ramp a few boxes at a time. I was headed for Texas, to some big city or other. They did have big cities in Texas—commerce, corporations, skyscraper office buildings, shopping malls . . .I’d watched an entire season of Dallas reruns on DVD during a girl trip with my sisters. I could live in the world of the Ewings. Find out who shot J.R. for real.
    Once again, I’d be moving far, far away from my family. . . .
    My mother would have a coronary. . . .
    You’ve only been dating the man a month. What are you thinking?
    Maybe we could do the long-distance thing. I could fly down on weekends. Daniel and Nick could visit for the holidays . . .
    Flying with a three-and-a-half-year-old would be a hassle . . .
    Those thoughts and a dozen others raced through my mind, rapid-fire, but all I managed to say was “Oh.”
    â€œYeah,” Daniel breathed, then pressed his lips together and swallowed hard. Behind those gorgeous eyes, I could see the wheels turning, full speed like mine. I wondered where they were headed.
    â€œUmm . . . where in Texas?” Inside me a voice was wailing, Say something. Tell me what you’re thinking. I mentally cycled through the possibilities, calling up scattered shreds of Texology gleaned from pop culture references and office chitchat. One of the cosponsors of the Clean Energy Bill was a congressman from Texas—someplace out in the sparsely