Ready or Not Read Online Free PDF Page A

notice my new hairstyle-slash-color.

    And the number-one thing that really, truly shocked me:
    Â Â Â Â 1.   That the first naked guy I ever saw was a total stranger.

2
    Okay, I’ve seen them before. Naked guys, I mean. On TV. In New York, when I go there for UN stuff, there’s a whole public access channel devoted to naked guys.
    And of course I’ve seen pictures of Michelangelo’s statue of David. Not to mention all the classical art at the National Gallery, which is, you know. Mostly nudes.
    And of course I’ve seen my dad naked. But only by accident, on the various occasions he’s had to hop around, swearing, after getting out of the shower to find that Lucy has used up all the towels to dry her cashmere sweaters on, or whatever.
    But the first naked guy not related to me that I ever saw live and up close ? I totally didn’t expect it to be someone I hadn’t even known five minutes before.
    To tell you the truth, I thought the first naked guy I’d ever see up close and personal like that would be my boyfriend, David.
    Or so I’d been hoping . Boy, had that not worked out according to plan.
    I looked around to see if anybody else was as surprised as I was to see Terry in the raw.
    But everyone else was busily drawing away. Even David. Even Rob.
    Excuse me, but what was up with that ? Was I the only sane person in the room? Why was I the only one going, “Um, hello? Does anybody else notice the naked guy here? Or is it just me?”
    Um, apparently so. No one else so much as blinked an eye. Just picked up their pencils and started sketching.
    Okay, clearly I missed something somewhere.
    Not knowing what else to do, I pretended to drop my eraser, then, when I was bending over to grab it, stole a quick peek at their drawing pads. David’s and Rob’s, I mean. I just wanted to see if they were…you know. Going to draw all of Terry. Or if maybe they were going to leave a polite blank space around his you-know-what. Because maybe that’s what you were supposed to do. I didn’t know. I mean, I couldn’t even say it. How was I supposed to draw it?
    I saw, however, that while they weren’t making Terry’s you-know-what the focal point of their drawings, both David and Rob had definitely roughed it in.
    So, obviously, they didn’t have a problem with drawing some naked dude.
    Still, I have to admit, I was pretty weirded out by the whole thing. How come no one else was? Maybe it’s easier to draw it if you actually own it. You know. The equipment.
    And how did Terry even qualify to be the resident naked guy, anyway? He wasn’t even good-looking. He was sort of skinny and had no muscle tone to speak of. He even had a tattoo of a heart with an arrow through it on his left bicep. He looked a lot like Jesus, actually, with his long blond hair and scruffy beard.
    Only I haven’t seen too many pictures of Jesus naked .
    â€œSam?”
    Susan was speaking really softly—she tries to keep conversation to a murmur during class, making her voice lower than the radio, which was tuned to a soothing classical music station.
    Still, softly as Susan had spoken, I jumped. Because classical music wasn’t enough to soothe me, in my current state of hyper–naked guy awareness.
    â€œWHAT?” I asked. For no reason at all, I started turning red. This is, of course, part of the curse of being redheaded. The tendency to blush for, like, no reason at all. I could feel my cheeks getting hotter and hotter. I wondered if, with my new black hair, my blush would be as noticeable as it used to be, back when my cheeks turned the same color as my bangs. I figured probably it was even more noticeable. The contrast, you know, of the black against the pink. Plus, you know, my eyebrows were still red. Although I had put black mascara on my eyelashes.
    â€œIs there a problem? You’re not drawing,” was what Susan said softly, as she