How I Found the Perfect Dress Read Online Free PDF Page A

we’re not in the same class,” he added. He had an out-of-season tan, like he’d been on a beach vacation recently or in a tanning booth. “That’d be gnarly, huh?”
    â€œYeah,” I agreed.
    â€œYou look nice,” he said. “Sophisticated.”
    I stopped myself before the old Morgan-on-cruise-control panted a grateful, thanks . From most people, a compliment is a compliment. From Raph, it was a judgment passed down from the ultimate position of authority. You look nice meant You usually don’t look this good; why don’t you try harder? It meant, My opinion about how you look is more important than yours . It meant, The way you look is not about you. It’s about what I think of you.
    And you could never complain about the condescension, because then he’d just say: “Most girls like it when a guy says they look nice! What’s wrong with you?” It was a tricky game, and one I’d always lost.
    For the record, Raphael had reacted with undisguised horror the first time he saw me with my hair chopped off, back in September. “What happened? Did you have chemo or something?” he’d blurted out. Then he inched away, like he thought I might be contagious or still radioactive.
    By now my self-inflicted buzz cut had grown into a soft, short pixie. Mom said I looked “gorgeous, like Mia Farrow.” The reference was lost on me, I have to admit.
    Raph’s compliment hung in the air between us. I glanced around. A few other students had wandered into the room, but there was nobody I recognized except Mr. Kappock himself, visible through the glass wall of his office. “Kar-Krazy Kappock” was an East Norwich celebrity, mostly because there were advertisements with his picture on them plastered all over town.
    Raph rocked the metal folding chair back and forth, which made an annoying metallic squeak. “I went out with Terry Lindsey a few times, but she talks too much,” he offered, like I would care. “So, are you seeing anybody?”
    I looked him right in the eye. I was cool, calm, one-hundred percent goddesslike in my ability to gaze without blinking.
    â€œNot a soul,” I said. “Right now, I don’t see anyone at all.”
    He got it, after a minute.
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    sarah had a basketball game the next daЧ. i Went, of course. It was a big deal to Sarah, and anyway, what else did I have to do with my Saturday night?
    I did have a paper due for social studies on the differences between Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, but every time I sat down to work on it, I kept writing stupid stuff instead:
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    Confusionism: When you know something but don’t understand what you know.
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    Duhism: When you should know something, but you don’t.
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    Butism: When someone tries to convince you that they know something you don’t know, but you don’t believe them.
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    So basketball it was. Girls’ basketball was kind of a big deal locally, since UConn was famed for its women’s basketball teams and there was real scholarship money at stake for the top high school players. Saturday night’s game would be a good one: East Norwich against Old Southport.
    â€œGo, ’Wiches! Go, ’Wiches!” Our girls jogged onto the court, fists in the air, and the East Norwich battle cry went up. It made me imagine the whole team whipping out their broomsticks and pointy black hats and flying around the gymnasium. Why not? Stranger things had happened. At least, to me they had.
    I’d spent twenty minutes waiting in line for a hot dog, so I still needed to find someplace to sit. I looked around the gym for a familiar face. Clementine and Deirdre were there, together of course, sitting one row behind Mike Fitch and his A-list crowd of guys. Tommy Vasquez—the one Deirdre thought might ask her to prom—was with Mike’s group, but he didn’t seem interested in anything except