I'm Not Julia Roberts Read Online Free PDF Page B

unsealed. She’d peeked inside, glimpsed the salutation “Dear Psycho,” and quickly shoved the letter back into the envelope.
    “Dad’s pissed. I don’t think he wants you to write any more letters to Lu,” Two had said.
    “It’s none of your business,” Beatrix replied, feeling herself flush. Yes, she had written a letter to Lu, her ex-husband’s wife, but it was a perfectly appropriate letter, a
well-deserved
letter. She doesn’t care what names her ex calls her. “You don’t have to worry about it.”
    Two smirked. “I’m not worried.”
    And here he is, smirking again. Beatrix is so tired of it. The smirking, the mockery, the disdain. He had smirked and mocked and dismissed and disdained her until she simply could not take it anymore, until she allowed him to move in with his father and
that woman
full-time. But instead of things getting better, they had only gotten worse. The most recent problem had to do with his birthday, which he was supposed to spend with his brothers, Beatrix, Alan, and even Liv. They were going camping for the weekend. Together, as a family. But he didn’t want to spend his birthday with
them,
he said. He wanted to go to some stupid baseball game with his friends. She knew she shouldn’t be insulted or even surprised by this, but she couldn’t help it. She had carried him for nine months. She had bathed and clothed and nurtured him. She had endured his contempt without complaint. All she asked for was one nice birthday celebration. A tidy tent. A cookout. Card games by the fire. These simple things, and he hadn’t spoken a civil word to her since.
    One returns with a tray of pop cans that she’s slipped into foam insulation sleeves. “To keep things cold,” says she, chill incarnate. Trays, foam insulation sleeves, thinks Beatrix. How can a girl who visits only a few times a month find such things when Beatrix herself isn’t aware they have them?
    One puts the tray on top of the coffee table—left uncovered because they plan on refinishing it anyway, whitewashing and distressing it—and grabs two of the cans. She sips from the can in her right hand and, with the can in her left, jabs Two in the ribs.
    “What?” says Two.
    “Take it,” says One.
    Two doesn’t look down at the can; he is watching a spider make its way across the ceiling. “I don’t want it.”
    “Yes, you do.”
    “I said, I don’t.”
    “God, you’re a shithead,” says One, jabbing him again.
    “Come on,” says Alan. “Can’t we all just get along?”
    Two stares down at One, then at the can in her hand. “Knock it off.”
    One is unimpressed. “Take it and I will, wingnut.”
    Two takes the pop. One sneers at him and flounces over to the sheet-covered couch, sits, and crosses her legs. Problem Two drinks, peering at One over the can. This is not the first time that One and Two have been in each other’s company, of course, but it is the first time that Two has ever looked at One in any way other than with complete indifference. Beatrix tells herself that she should be encouraged, but instead a finger of anxiety tickles her gut.
    “Are you guys ready to paint?” Alan says. Alan loves to paint things. Alan has the steadiest hands in the universe.
    “Sure,” says Beatrix.
    “Let’s get it over with,” says One.
    “Whatever,” says Two.
    Twenty minutes pass in silence, until Alan disappears into the kitchen to retrieve the radio. In deference to the Problems, he tunes in to a top forty station, and rap music assaults Beatrix’s ears, some woman chanting about licking someone up and down. Lick, lick, lick, lick.
    “What are we listening to?” she says before she can stop herself. She is always talking too fast, stating the obvious, leaving herself open.
    “It’s called music,” says One. She looks at Two. “I guess they didn’t have this sort of thing back in the day.”
    “No,” says Beatrix, “they didn’t. They
sang
back in the day.”
    “That’s what you