Pictures of Emily

Pictures of Emily Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: Pictures of Emily Read Online Free PDF
Author: Theresa Weir
Tags: FICTION/Romance/General
didn’t.
    A heavy footfall sounded on the stairs.
    Emily looked up. “Papa, come and meet Sonny Maxwell.”
    Then Sonny’s hand was being crushed by John Christian’s.
    “I want to thank you for saving my daughter’s life,” the burly man said while continuing to pump Sonny’s hand. “If I’d ’uv lost my Emily—” His voice caught and he couldn’t continue.
    Emily came to the rescue. “I’m alive and well.” She flashed Sonny one of the sweetest smiles he believed he’d ever seen, then she was leading them both to the kitchen, in the direction of those good smells.
    There had only been a couple of times when Sonny had eaten a meal with a family. He usually ate fast food or restaurant food, or, when he was alone at his cabin, he’d just heat something from out of a can— when he remembered to eat at all.
    Sonny took a seat at one end of the table, John Christian at the other. To his left were Claire and Babbie, his right, Tilly and Emily.
    He wasn’t used to saying prayers, either. Seeing all the bowed heads, he awkwardly locked his fingers together.
    John Christian said the blessing. “Thank You, Lord, for this food which Emily has worked so hard to prepare. And thank You for sending a stranger into our midst to pull my daughter from the sea.”
    Amens were heard all around the table.
    The meal consisted of fish chowder loaded with potatoes and carrots, hot homemade bread with butter, and blackberry jam. It was some of the best food Sonny had ever tasted.
    He’d never been good at small talk, but somehow the warmth of the small kitchen sneaked up on him. Or maybe it was the soft smiles Emily would occasionally send his way. Whatever the reason, he began to relax.
    Claire even came out of the clouds enough to ask, “How old were you when you made your first commercial?”
    “About four. Younger than Babbie.”
    “Did you like it?” Tilly asked.
    He thought a moment. “It was fun, like playing pretend.”
    More importantly, it had made his mother happy. But she never stayed happy long. One moment, she would hug and kiss him, the next she would shove him away. He’d been too young to understand that her violent mood swings were due to alcoholism.
    “That sounds really neat,” Tilly said. “I heard about a kid who was making a movie, and he didn’t have to go to school. Did you ever get to ditch school?”
    “If I missed very much school, a tutor would come to the studio and work with me.”
    “That would be so neat!” Claire and Tilly said in unison.
    He didn’t want them to get the wrong idea, didn’t want them to think that his life had been fuller than theirs. Nothing was further from the truth.
    And he didn’t like to talk about his childhood, didn’t even like to think about it. He’d been seven when he learned that being a child actor wasn’t so neat. He’d wanted to go to a birthday party, but his mother made him go for an audition instead. Once there, he’d sulked and refused to say his lines correctly and some other kid ended up getting the part.
    His mother went berserk. He’d seen her mad, but never like this. She jerked him out of the studio, shoved him into the convertible one of her men friends had bought for her, drove him home and told him to pack all of his things.
    The next day she took him to a huge four-story mansion—surrounded by a black iron fence—a boardinghouse for child actors, the place that was to be his home for the next several years.
    “I’d like to be on TV and miss school,” Tilly said.
    “It wasn’t as great as it sounds,” Sonny told her. “There weren’t many other kids around, and it was pretty boring most of the time. You had to be ready for your part, even if it meant waiting all day to say one line. It wasn’t so great,” he repeated.
    He looked up to find Emily staring at him, her eyes huge and sad, full of question and a strange compassion. Again he had the uncanny feeling that she could read his mind.
    Then her eyes pulled away
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