Pink Smog Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed to know me, too. Maybe he really was my guardian angel. I wished he had stayed long enough for me to talk to him, although I wouldn’t have really known what to say. He was so cute that after I recovered from the shock of what had happened I would probably have started mumbling or stuttering and made a fool out of myself.
    All I wanted was for Charlie to call. I had no idea how to reach him. The only real friend he had was Irv Feingold and I didn’t have his phone number. Besides, what would I say— Have you seen my daddy ? And he probably didn’t want to think about people leaving after what happened with Edie.
    Actually, I didn’t just want Charlie to call—I wanted him to drive up in the battered yellow T-bird and take me away. We would drive across the country, all the way to the East Coast. We would live in a tiny apartment in Manhattan and I would go to school there. I wouldn’t miss the sun. I wouldn’t miss the pink sky. I wouldn’t miss the palm trees or the diamonds in the pavement. I would see beauty again, everywhere I looked. I would paint the walls of my room pink and I’d paint the floor black with silver sparkles. My dad would take me to the Metropolitan Museum to see the huge Buddhas and the indoor pyramid and the van Goghs. I’d learn about all the weird, dark music that he had told me about. The Velvet Underground and the Stooges. I’d be someone else. No one would ever call me Louise again.
    I trudged upstairs, like I had huge boots on my feet instead of the shortest version of lightweight cork platform sandals, and threw down my backpack. My mom was watching TV.
    â€œDid you hear the dogs?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer so I asked again.
    â€œDogs? What dogs? There aren’t any dogs in this building.”
    â€œNow there are,” I said. “Do you know about any new people who moved in?”
    My mom pulled her bathrobe over her pilling, pale yellow nylon negligee. She had streaks of mascara on her cheeks and her face looked bloated. Her voice sounded muffled, cottony. “What?”
    â€œThere was a weird girl with three dogs. She tried to sic them on me. This boy stopped them.”
    â€œThere aren’t any new people here.”
    â€œIn Unit Thirteen.”
    â€œThis building doesn’t have a thirteen. Bad luck.” She turned back to the TV. “And if it did, no one would live in it.”
    â€œHe was the boy that saved you,” I said but she wasn’t listening. She had turned the TV sound up louder and was staring at the screen as if she could disappear inside if she stared hard enough.
    Then the phone rang and we both jumped. She got it before I could.
    â€œHello? Hello?”
    She slammed the receiver down.
    â€œWho was that?” I asked.
    â€œThey hung up. Wrong number probably.”
    School was not where I wanted to be either but it was better than home. Or was it? There weren’t any chow dogs after me but there was Staci Nettles and she was about as bad.
    â€œHey,” she said. She and her friends, Marci Torn and Kelli Glass, were standing in front of me as I sat on the front steps putting on my skates. They flipped their hair in perfect unison. I noticed my neighbors, the twins Mary and Wendy Mendoza, were watching from a little distance away.
    â€œHi, Staci.”
    â€œI saw you throw the slam book away.”
    I could hardly tie my laces under her stare.
    â€œWe could have gotten busted. Luckily, Marci fished it out or you would have been in deep shit.”
    I realized I was holding my breath. Certain people can smell fear the way dogs do.
    â€œI strongly suggest you never do anything like that again,” Staci told me. “Stand up.”
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œStand up.” Marci and Kelli took me by the shoulders and lifted me into position, held me there.
    Then Staci stretched her gum out over her tongue and blew a giant pink bubble in