Love Edy Read Online Free PDF

their
breath in unison. She hadn’t kept her mother’s impossible schedule
since the day she realized no one made sure she did. That had been
a year ago, thank God.
    Hassan led the way into her house, shoving
open the door and heading straight for the kitchen. Once there, he
snatched a plate from the cabinet, grabbed a fistful of pancakes,
and stuck his head in the fridge for more food. When he came away
again, it was with a carton of strawberries and a can of whipped
cream. He stacked that on his plate and took a seat.
    “Your dad’s going over some stuff with me
this week. He’s been studying film and working out theories.
Something’s got him wired. He thinks we can make a run for a state
championship, if you can believe that.”
    Hassan rolled a pancake, toppings and all,
and jammed half of it in his mouth. “West Roxbury’s the monster to
fear, though.”
    Edy’s father was a professor by trade, but
football was his lifelong passion. A former kicker for Harvard with
a talent too short of his love, it had been her dad who’d bought
Hassan his first football, taught him game fundamentals, and sat
huddled for hours with him, cultivating an understanding and
philosophy so nuanced that only the two of them could make sense of
it.
    “We start this morning,” he said
apologetically. “I’m heading up to Harvard Yard in a bit. He has a
break he wants to spend with me.”
    Of course. This was the way it started. And
he probably wasn’t even meeting her dad. Maybe he was meeting the
redhead. She would know by Monday in any case. Toenails didn’t get
clipped without making the South End High grapevine.
    “So. You’re not walking me to ballet.”
    She’d meant to say it with more
indifference, with a slice that cut him instead of her. Instead,
the words only depressed her, a reminder that three years of a
ritual could disappear in an instant.
    He reached over and yanked on her
ponytail.
    “Hey, long face,” he said. “I’ve been
walking you there forever. Don’t I get credit for time served?”
    Time served.
    When she didn’t answer, he snorted and
returned to his pancakes.
    “What are you in for today?” he said in that
oblivious way that belonged only to boys. “After ballet?”
    Edy unclenched her teeth. “I don’t know.
Bake some cookies and bringing ’em to the newcomers. Extend the
Suzy Homemaker welcome.”
    “Like hell,” Hassan said, surprising her
with his fervor. “This isn’t 1950, June Cleaver. And I don’t like
the look of them, anyway.”
    “You didn’t even see them.”
    “That’s what you think.”
    Edy raised a brow. It was his habit to
assume the role of big brother, taught to him by their parents,
perfected with practice, despite them being exactly the same age.
Nonetheless, he had little room to talk, after boinking the
redhead. “Funny. Turns out I can ignore you as easily as Mom.”
    “Listen to me,” he said. He stared at her,
stared until her outrage, her annoyance; her urge to defy him began
to melt—because hard feelings between them always did. Edy snorted
at the trick. He then rose, loaded his dishes in the dishwasher,
and planted a kiss on her forehead in what had to be goodbye.
    “Stay away from the new neighbors.”
    He disappeared.
    ~~~
    Edy didn’t get a chance to venture across
the street until the following morning. Ballet practice ran long,
and afterward, she spent the evening making chocolate chip cookies
for the new neighbors, only to roast them to a fine, thin
crisp.
    Instead of marching over empty-handed, she
waited for an opportune time to visit. Sunday morning, Edy plopped
down on the porch with a fresh glass of mango lassi , her
dancer’s feet creaking in protest as she watched her father back
out the drive. The lassi, a sort of Indian yogurt smoothie,
had as many variations as imagination allowed. Edy, who’d made her
first with the aid of a stool and Hassan’s mother, had an arsenal
assortment of the drinks under her command. Though she