No Ordinary Life Read Online Free PDF

having a throwdown with the man. He does a simple two-step or slide then Molly mimics it.
    I have no idea how it started, but the audience is loving it. It’s very amusing, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall black dude with beaded dreadlocks laying down smooth dance moves that then a small, pudgy white girl with gold curls imitates. And watching it, it’s impossible not to smile. My heart radiates with pride. That’s my girl, my girl.
    Tom and Emily sidle up beside me and are proud as well, all of us beaming as we watch Molly do her Molly thing. Several people in the crowd have their phones out and are taking pictures. I pull out my own antique flip phone and snap a shot as well.
    The big man stops playing the guitar and starts clapping his hands over his head, encouraging the audience to join in, and the entire street explodes in unison to sing the ending. Then he pulls the microphone from its stand, holds it down to Molly, and Molly leads the audience in the finale, “…Jowhnny B. Goode.”
    The crowd erupts in applause, and the big man gives Molly a high-five. Then Molly skips to the guy playing the drums and they knock knuckles.
    She is skipping back when a woman steps forward and hands her something. I rush toward them, but the woman disappears into the crowd before I get there.
    “What’d she give you?” Emily asks, hugging Molly against her hip, clearly relieved that Molly was found and clearly feeling bad about losing her in the first place.
    Molly opens her hand to reveal a twenty-dollar bill.
    “Why she give me money?” Molly asks.
    “She must have liked the way you danced,” I say, my heart swollen to bursting.
    We race back to the car and arrive to another fabulous relief, no ticket. In a splurge of celebration, I drop another two dollars in the meter, and Molly treats us to ice cream with her twenty dollars. We carry our cones to the beach and for the next hour play in the sand.
    Today might just be our lucky day.

7
    W e’ve been in LA a month and have settled into a routine, not miserable but a good measure shy of content, a sustainable existence that borders on normal.
    My mom and I barely see each other, which is perhaps the reason the precarious peace exists. My four shifts at Namaka keep me out until after the rest of the house is asleep, and my mom works the other three days, two as a volunteer at the local library and the third at Star Gazer , a weekly tabloid devoted to stalking celebrities, snapping photos of them, then making up stories to go along with those photos.
    Prior to her retirement, my mom had been a middle school English teacher. Now she uses her writing skills and her obsession with the famous to write an astrology column on celebrities, divining their futures from the position of the sun and the moon, the exact moment of their birth, and their current location on the globe. It’s all very scientific hogwash, but the readers love it, and her column is one of the most popular in the magazine.
    School ends in a week, and I’m stressed about the summer routine, or rather lack of routine. Since we moved here, my mom has homeschooled Tom, sparing him from starting in a new school, so he and Molly have been home, but blessedly Emily’s been gone five days a week, sparing us all from her spite.
    Emily hates her new school, hates LA, and hates me. And I hate to admit it, but I’m glad she’s not around on the days I’m home so I don’t have to deal with it. The only saving grace is the soccer team she joined. Other than that, she’s miserable and miserable to be around, and when school ends, she’s going to be like a caged elephant with a stubbed toe.
    *  *  *
    I’m surprised when I walk into the condo after my shift to find my mom still awake. I look at the clock. 10:15.
    “What are you doing up?” I ask, my tongue thick from exhaustion and boredom. The new rhythm of my life—working, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry—is like elevator music, droning on endlessly without