Lovers and Liars Read Online Free PDF

her. She had no friends in the city. The girls openly hated her. The boys wanted only to stick their hands up her skirt. Summer was everything. She had Lady, and her best friend, Dana, who was also a tomboy and her first girlfriend. And she had the ocean and her books. She lived for summertime in the Hamptons. And now he wanted her to go to camp instead for two months. No way. Never.
    She went.
    But not without fighting him with every ounce ofstrength she possessed. “I’m not going,” she had shouted, crying.
    “You’re going!” Abe roared. “Just who do you think you are, Miss Princess? Spoiled. Your mother’s spoiled you rotten. You’re going.”
    “Mom!” Belinda pleaded desperately.
    “Abe!” Nancy, pale, did try.
    “Shut up!”
    “I hate you,” Belinda sobbed hysterically. “I hate you. I’ll run away. I’ll—”
    “You hate me?” Abe had asked, suddenly quiet.
    “Yes!” Belinda shouted defiantly. “I’ve always hated you!”
    The slap right across the face took her by surprise, the sound cracking like a whip in the sudden lull of silence. Before Belinda could even comprehened that he had hit her, before she could recover, before the throbbing began, Abe had said, “You hate me? I gave you that damn horse. I give you those damn books you read. Those jeans and that shirt—who do you think puts the clothes on your back? This house—you think other kids get a room like this all to themselves? And the toys—those horse models you’ve got to play with? Huh? You hate me?”
    “I hate you,” she said, clenching her jaw, turning red.
    His mouth worked. He balled up his fists. “You’re going! If I gotta tie you and throw you on that bus myself, you’re going! Do I make myself clear?”
    Belinda said, “Very,” her voice barely audible. Then she turned and ran. She heard Abe saying to Nancy, “Don’t you dare go after her.” And Nancy hadn’t.
    Camp was a nightmare. As usual, all the girls shunned her. A friendly counselor tried to tell her it was because she was so beautiful, and they were jealous. Belinda had never heard such a crazy thing, but she took a long look in the mirror, searching to see if what the counselor had said was true. She was also the most popular girl at the first coed dance, held at the end of the second week, and that further increased her wonder. An older boy took her into the bushes, somehow evading the counselors (who were collegekids too busy making it with one another to really care) and kissed her, her first kiss, his hands beneath her shirt and on her breasts. She was utterly confused. She didn’t want boys to look at her that way. But it was pleasant—more than pleasant.
    She didn’t go to the second dance at the end of the month. That was the night she ran away from camp, hitching a ride to town and catching a bus back to New York. She had despised camp, and there was no point in staying. She wasn’t going to let her father make a decision for her that was so important to her and meant nothing to him.
    She would never forget the next day. Hearing those strange noises from her mother’s bedroom as she approached to defensively tell her she was home—to stay. The door had been shut, not locked. Belinda knocked, but there was no answer. She walked in.
    Her mother had been on her back on the bed, cross-ways. Her shirt was open, breasts exposed. Her skirt was shoved up around her waist. A man was on top of her, pushing his hips at her rhythmically, braced on his forearms above her. Her mother was making strange noises, and there was a steady slapping sound of flesh hitting flesh. Belinda must have gasped.
    The man looked up, and their eyes met.
    Belinda had run.

6
    E meralds went so well with red.
    Abe would certainly prefer the emeralds.
    Yes, she would wear the emeralds with the red Oscar de la Renta. Satisfied with her decision, Nancy Glassman paused in front of a full-length mirror in the master suite ofher Trump Tower penthouse apartment to study