Subway Love Read Online Free PDF

nor did he care about anything else in her life. No, this was a battle of wills, his and hers. It was a personal war she waged for the freedom of her own body; for the power over who could touch her and who could not, for what food she would or would not put inside her. Often she lost. That day she lost, but she had put up the fight. She gagged down the seaweed, and when Laura looked up, everyone was gone.
    Bergdorf Goodman was across the street, as was Chanel and Tiffany’s, and if she remembered correctly, FAO Schwarz was along here somewhere. Nothing in that store had ever interested her, not even when her grandmother acted as if it was a New York destination unto itself, a child’s paradise. Laura never liked dolls, but she loved her Nana, and she now owned an entire collection of oddly large and gaudily overdressed Madame Alexander dolls from around the world. Laura cringed to think how her Nana would feel if she knew that half of those expensive dolls were somewhere in the woods behind her house and the rest were naked or lost entirely. Laura tried to remember how they had gotten in that state, and before she knew it, without thinking, she had walked twenty blocks north.
    “THIS is your great-adventure idea?” Jonas asked. “Going to the Met?”
    Yesterday had proved a bust when it came to finding the imaginary hippie girlfriend, and besides, after bumping into his father, Jonas had just felt like going back home. Now it was Sunday, and another adventure was to be found; at least, that’s how Nick phrased it.
    “Yeah, hottest girls in New York. You know that.” They stood in front of the steps to the museum. It was one of those especially warm October mornings, the sun like a whitewash over the city. “Nothing like a babe that’s bored.”
    “Babe?”
    “Just c’mon.” Nick started up the steps, two at a time.
    “I see those mummies really got you turned on.”
    To a degree, of course, Nick was right. There were a lot of pretty girls hanging out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was fairly crowded, but then again, it always was.
    Jonas let Nick buy their little metal entrance pins, a dollar for both of them.
    Jonas gave him a look.
    “What? It’s a
suggested
fee.”
    “Where to?”
    Nick pointed decisively across the lobby. “The Impressionist collection, of course.”
    Jonas didn’t ask why.
    The first thing Jonas always noticed in a girl was her face — if she had a pretty face and nice skin. Then her deeply colored hair, though it didn’t much matter what color as long as it was healthy-looking. A slim body, not too thin, never fat. A little rounded could be nice, athletic, strong, but the skin was important. And the face.
    Then, if he wasn’t close enough to measure her against himself, he would quickly try to estimate her height. In middle school it was easy to be taller. Jonas towered over the other kids, girls and boys both, but lately, since eighth grade, maybe ninth, when he’d stopped growing in height, he had been more careful. Nothing was worse than being attracted to a girl only to find out she stood two or three inches taller and actually had to look down to make eye contact.
    The girl across the tracks had had pretty skin and soft hair, dark and long. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. He didn’t bother trying, even while Nick was laying out his plan for how to pick up blasé female art students.
    Jonas looked across the exhibit room. Velvet ropes hung between low brass stands surrounded each painting, creating a distinct space into which visitors could not enter. They kept people from getting too close to the Monets, the Renoirs, the Cézannes. But this dude by the far wall was standing inside, his face nearly touching the canvas. His hands were moving as if he were re-creating the brushstrokes.
    “Hey, check that guy out.” Jonas nudged Nick.
    “Who? Where?”
    The “art lover” appeared to be a teenager not much older than Nick and Jonas, if at all older. Probably