Snark and Stage Fright Read Online Free PDF

snap at her like that?” he asked without looking at me. I was shaken by this but determined not to show it. She had started the catfight, not me, and even if he didn’t know that, he should know that I would never be mean to someone arbitrarily.
    “Hey, I was merely restating documented fact. Images of super skinny fashion models do contribute to high incidences of eating and body dysmorphic disorders in female adolescents.”
    He looked directly at me now as he opened the screen door to the porch and just said, “Really, George?”
    “Well, it’s not like it’s an instantaneous thing,” I allowed. “It’s not like a girl sees a Victoria’s Secret ad, feels inadequate, and immediately runs to the bathroom to stuff her fingers down her throat—though I’m pretty sure Cassie has done exactly that.” I set down the folded towel and bag of water bottles next to the umbrella and followed him into the little white kitchen. I’d felt so relieved that morning to move down into his parents’ little gray bungalow (little by comparison) and out of the Glass Boat. Now I felt anything but relieved. “You’re mad at me,” I said.
    He frowned and opened the refrigerator to return the cheese.
    “I don’t see why you had to say that to her. It’s not like Catalina decided to become a model just so she could mess with the self-esteem levels of overly impressionable girls,” he said.
    “Are you sure? Because while you were gone she seemed pretty determined to make me feel inadequate.”
    He shut the fridge door and brushed some sand off his plaid bathing trunks.
    “You do that all on your own, Georgie,” he sighed.
    I felt really bad. On the one hand, one could easily describe Catalina with a word that I never use because it’s so sexist. (I’ll just say that if she gives birth one day to a litter of puppies, I won’t be surprised). On the other hand, Michael was hardly responsible for what she had said in his absence. And I can be a little trigger-happy with the tongue when I feel threatened.
    I walked over to him and put a hand on his elbow and felt every cell in my body relax when he put his arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder for a moment, breathing in the smell of Michael mixed with ocean air and salt water, which is pretty much the best smell ever.
    “I promise to keep my rapier wit in its sheath for the rest of this visit,” I said. “I would never do anything to make you or your family uncomfortable.”
    “Not intentionally, anyway.” He smiled and kissed the top of my head. “I need a shower.” He walked out of the room and then stuck his head back in the doorway. “You weren’t jealous of Catalina, were you, Georgie?” he asked with a grin that was way too delighted by this concept.
    I pretended to be very preoccupied with finding the exact right spot for the peanut butter jar in the cabinet above the sink, and he just laughed and walked away. But he was replaced in the doorway almost instantly by his grandmother, with her white hair wrapped in a silk striped scarf and wearing a high-collared white blouse and pink cotton skirt.
    “Hi, Mrs. Endicott,” I said as nicely as I could and tried to smile, trying to fashion myself as the picture of Sweetness and Politesse. “Remember me? From the rosebushes yesterday?”
    “I do remember you,” she assured me. “From the Harvest Ball last year.”
    I felt myself redden darker than my slight sunburn as I busied myself getting a glass of water, saying, “Oh, that’s right. I think I remember that.”
    She sniffed and put a ringed white hand on the back of a simple wooden chair. “You were dancing with a young man who had forfeited his country club membership, I recall, due to certain … improprieties.”
    I gulped down some water, nodding. “Yeah, I think that’s true, too … ” I had danced with Jeremy Wrentham then; he’d cut in on Michael, which had seemed like something out of a Jane Austen novel at the time. It had not,