Girls on Film Read Online Free PDF Page B

parking lot. “This is it,” he announced, pointing at the A-frame structure. “Big Al’s.”
    Anna peered at the carved wooden sign on the door. “It says Tofu Shack.”
    Adam groaned. “Tofu Shack? This is Big Al’s! He was an old biker who wouldn’t go within a football field of tofu. All meat, all the time.”
    “When was the last time you were here?”
    “Summer,” Adam admitted.
    “Well, either Big Al had a spiritual epiphany or he sold the place.”
    “Tofu,” Adam muttered disgustedly. “Edible cardboard. But if you like it, we could—”
    “Why don’t we just get something to drink?” Anna suggested. “You said there’s a patio, and I’m sure it’s beautiful. It’s already pretty late.”
    “Works for me. And let’s bring the dog. If they say anything, I’ll tell them we’re on the board of PETA.”
    But the Tofu Shack had no problems with Bowser so long as he stayed under their table. The aging hippie waitress even brought him a bowl of cold water. Ten minutes later the three of them—two humans and one mutt—were sitting contentedly with their drinks two hundred feet above the Pacific, the waves below them crashing against the beachfront. Offshore, the lights of a few passing boats bobbed gently in the night.
    Anna inhaled deeply. “Mmmm. I love that sea smell.”
    “Me too. One of my many life goals is to live on the ocean. Of course, around here, you have to be mighty rich to pull that one off.”
    “Is that one of your life goals, too?” Anna asked. “To get mighty rich?”
    “Not really. It’s kind of like a sickness in Beverly Hills. ‘I’m rich, therefore I am’ or something.”
    “Life is easier with money, though,” Anna said softly.
    “Yeah, but … I don’t know. Maybe it’s overrated. I’m thinking I’ll buy some old heap of a sailboat, fix it up, and take it around the world or something.”
    “That sounds great.”
    He looked surprised. “Are you serious?”
    “Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Most of the girls in Beverly Hills are only interested in yachts. Preferably over a hundred feet, with a service staff of twenty.”
    “My mother belongs to a club on Long Island that has several vessels that could float the White House,” she said. “I’ve been on a couple. It’s hardly a great adventure.”
    “Is that what you’re looking for? Adventure?”
    Bowser put his snout on Anna’s foot; she reached down to stroke his head. “I suppose I am. That’s one of the reasons I left New York.”
    “Beverly Hills is not exactly a jungle safari.”
    “I don’t know about that,” Anna said.
    He laughed. “Yeah, I guess it can be rugged.”
    “There’s just so much jockeying for position here, so much emphasis on superficial things. God, now, that’s a cliché judgment if there ever was—”
    “No, I know what you mean. But you can’t take that crap seriously. Who got wasted at whose party? Whose outfit is most expensive? Who got the biggest implants? Who cares?”
    “Exactly,” Anna agreed. “Anyway, next year we’ll both go off to college, and this’ll all seem like a bad dream.”
    “Do you know where you’re going?”
    “Yale. You?”
    “This buddy of mine teaches at a sports academy in inner-city Detroit. I’ve been thinking about going back to Michigan for a year to help out.”
    “A year off? I never even considered that,” Anna mused, considering it now and liking what she was thinking.
    “Don’t tell my parents. They may look like liberals, but when I mentioned the idea, I thought they were both going to spontaneously combust at the dinner table.”
    Anna laughed. Once again Adam nearly had to pinch himself. Sure, he’d had girlfriends before. But none of them had been like this girl. With tendrils of wheat-colored hair blowing against her cheeks from the breeze and her eyes sparkling in the moonlight, she looked so … alive. So genuine. So like the girl he’d always dreamed of but was sure he could never have.
    Don’t get