New Year's Eve Read Online Free PDF Page B

firecracker.”
    Jade laughed, her face bright and happy. “They only fight with each other. That’s enough blood for me.”
    Daisy began to kick her legs and complain, reaching with her arms. She wanted to go to Grady. He heard her and came over. He lifted her up with his big hands and settled her in the crook of his arm. He didn’t seem to mind the water getting on his shirt.
    “Who’s the baby?” he asked her. “Who’s the baby girl?” Sap. Daisy loved it, though.
    “We did meet,” Jade said to Grady.
    She smiled at him. Her teeth were as nice as Sharla’s. But she was way better looking, I thought.
    And way more Grady’s type.
    “We met at Moxie’s, in Edmonton,” Jade told him. “During the course. I went in a few times to have dinner with Tim. I remember you. And Ron.”
    Grady laughed. “I was in a daze, trying to remember what I’d been taught. Hoping not to screw up in front of Tim, probably.”
    Hearing about Grady being out with other people always makes me jealous. It’s just because I hardly ever get to go.
    But if I met him, I’d be in love with him. I mean, when I did meet him, I was. I am. I should not have had that drink, I thought. It’s making me stupid.
    “Who did your hair?” Grady asked me. “You look like Princess Buttercup at the wedding.”
    “Yeah, Robin Wright, The Princess Bride !” Sharla said. She had brought Ron’s drink in from the kitchen. “She was my idol. I looked like her, back then.”
    She put down a platter of egg rolls and slid out of her robe and into the water like a bare pink fish. Sharla still looked like a princess, a lot more than I did, anyway.
    “Sharla did my hair,” I said. “She did a good job, eh?”
    Grady looked at me over Daisy’s head. He crossed his eyes.
    “Oh, yeahhh,” he said, in a voice that meant, What the hell has she done to you? Where’s my real wife?
    I laughed.
    I stopped worrying. Jade was not in love with Grady. He wouldn’t do that, let someone be in love with him.
    Ron picked up his drink and sat on the edge of the hot tub between Jade and Sharla.
    “So,” he said. “When do I dare get out of this uniform and make you women happy?”
    The radio jumped on the tray.
    “Jinx,” Grady said.
    “We forgot to tell you, the buffalo got out again,” I told him. We should have phoned Control. It hadn’t occurred to me then. I didn’t say anything about nearly getting mowed down.
    Ron was already up and in his coat.
    He moved fast, talking to the control room. An MVA—motor vehicle accident.
    Grady gave me Daisy and his untouched drink, grabbed his coat, and went out the door with Ron. Daisy looked after him, lost and lonely.
    “It’s okay, baby,” I told her. “He’ll be back.”
    Ron turned and gave us a quick wave. I looked over at Sharla—she didn’t look up from her egg roll.
    But Jade was watching him go. Her face had the same look as Daisy’s. Like she’d been left by her beloved.
    Oh shit, I thought—and thank goodness, tangled up in the same thought. It’s Ron.

Chapter Nine

    Sharla’s purple dress lay on the floor, where she’d dropped it when we first got into the hot tub. The sparkly necklace spread over it like fireworks.
    Midnight must be close, I thought. Please let midnight come soon, so I can go to bed.
    We had finished the egg rolls and more wings. The caramel apple pie oozed half-eaten on the edge of the tub.
    Jade broke a fingernail getting a Diet Coke open. Tsk, went Sharla, sucking her teeth. She brought out her nail polish case. After she fixed Jade’s nail, she painted all our nails and glued a little fake diamond on each tip. My hands looked like they belonged to somebody else. To Sharla, actually.
    Jade and Sharla kept talking and talking while I stayed quiet.
    If a person thinks she knows something, should she tell? And tell who, anyway—Sharla? Ron?
    I could tell Grady, maybe, but he looks down on gossip. I could just keep quiet. I thought, too, about Sharla’s three babies