Ice Read Online Free PDF

friends who laid carpet and put up wallpaper and got some very good deals at the mall. No matter what he did though, the place was still "a dump" to Mama.
"Date? What kind of date?" Daddy asked. I could hear the concern in his voice, which took me by surprise. He rarely asked me anything about my friends or any boys at school. He never pushed me to go to dances or asked me why I wasn't going out on weekends.
"A nice date," Mama said. "I arranged it myself," she boasted.
"You arranged it? What do you mean? How?"
"I arranged for Louella Carter's brother Shawn to take her out. He's an army boy on leave from boot camp."
"Army boy? What kind of an arrangement is that? What are you saying, she never met him?"
"Now you tell me. Cameron Goodman, how is she going to meet anyone shut up in this place listening to music with you on weekends and such. huh? You think there's some sort of billboard out there with her face on it. announcing Ice Goodman's here, come and ask her out?"
"This doesn't sound good to me," Daddy said, his voice lining with alarm,
"Oh no? And why is that. Cameron? Huh? Why? Because I made it all happen?"
"It just doesn't sound like it will be good. Army boys are a different breed," he warned. "Don't forget I was an MP. I know what being shut up with other men does to them, especially a boy just released from boot camp."
"Well, this time it will be good," she insisted. "Louella's a very nice girlfriend and I'm sure her brother's a nice young man. Besides, what have you been doing to help that child be a normal girl, huh? Nothing. You're content just keeping her home listening to music. How she ever going to meet anyone and get married that way?"
"She's only seventeen and still in high school. Lena. It's not exactly a crisis."
"How old was I when you married me? Huh? Well?"
"It was different" Daddy said almost under his breath. "You were different."
"What's that supposed to mean? You think she's better than us?"
"No. That's not what I'm saying," he said, but he didn't say it firmly enough for her.
"Blowing that child's ego up to make her think she's the Virgin Mary or something, raving about her singing all the time. Na one's ever going to be good enough for her. Maybe that's what you want. Cameron Goodman. Maybe you want to keep her at your side all your days. Her hair will grow gray alongside yours listening to music. It's unnatural, that's what it is."
"Stop it. Lena."
"She's going on a date. She's going to be a normal girl who talks. And she's going to make me proud. Come aboard or swim to shore.
Cameron, but don't you dare say one word against it. hear? I'm warning you."
Daddy was quiet. He wasn't happy, but he retreated as he usually did. His lack of enthusiasm and his warnings, however, put even more steam into Mama. Now she had to prove she was right. She couldn't wait to get me up and out to the beauty parlor the next morning. She made such a production out of it, I was truly embarrassed when we arrived.
"Here she is!" she cried as soon as we stepped through the doorway.
All the women in chairs turned to look and every one of the beauticians stopped work. Dawn, a dirty blond no taller than my old grade-school teacher. Mrs. Waite, emerged from the rear of the shop and looked me over as if I was someone just brought to civilization.
"She's got potential," she declared. "I see what you were saying, Lena,"
Mama swelled with pride.
"But we've got some work here," Dawn added cautiously as she circled me. Everyone else was still looking at me.
"Pretty girl," the woman in the first chair said.
"Tall, like a model," the man working on her commented.
Dawn fingered my hair. "You're really dry, girl," she said. "And doing a lot of shedding."
"I knew it." Mama said. "She just hasn't looked after herself right. I've been hounding her, but you know young people today. You can't tell them anything."
Dawn didn't respond. She kept circling me, which made me even more nervous.
"We have to shampoo and condition plenty," she said.